[Early gastric cancer--special geriatric problems (author's transl)]

With increasing age polypous growth predominates among early gastric cancers. These polypoid carcinomas corresponding to intestinal type carcinoma are seen together with chronic atrophic gastritis, in part they originate from precancerous conditions like adenoma or borderline lesion. Our experience in 86 patients with early gastric carcinomas shows that associated lesions like hyperplasiogenic polyps (17.4%), adenoma and borderline lesion (8.1%) and synchronous carcinoma (9.3%) are common. 5-year-survival rate corresponds with a figure between 70 and 100% according to the histological type and depth of infiltration with the Japanese literature. In geriatric patients therapy should be individually adopted. Local measures like surgical excision or endoscopic polypectomy may be used alternatively to classical surgery.