[Correlation between endoscopy and histology of 48 cases of superficial stomach cancer]

The relationship between different endoscopic (gross appearance, diameter, localization, morphological type according to the Japanese Endoscopic Society) and histological parameters (type of cancer according to Lauren, tumor infiltration, association with metaplastic chronic gastritis) were analyzed retrospectively in 48 patients operated on for early gastric cancer. Endoscopy and histology provided a preoperative diagnosis of malignancy in 89.6% of the cases. With endoscopy alone the results were 23% malignancy, 44% suspicious and 33 benign. The antrum was the preferential site and type III the most frequent form. 62% of early gastric cancers were of the intestinal type and the average age of the patients was higher than for the diffuse type. Metaplastic chronic gastritis was associated in 67% of the intestinal type and in 21.5% of the infiltrating type. The degree of tumor infiltration was related to the diameter of the lesion, irrespective of the histological type. Since a malignant or suspicious lesion was diagnosed in only 67% by endoscopy alone, it is imperative to perform several biopsies of all gastric lesions, including even the smallest: 11 cancers of type III and IIc in this series had a diameter inferior to 1 cm and had been classified endoscopically as benign.