Early gastric cancer: a morphologic study of 41 cases

The incidence as well as the morphologic features of early gastric cancer observed in 41 cases during the last 5 years are reported. The incidence of early gastric cancer was 9.11% among the total gastric carcinomas seen during the above period. As regards age and sex, the patients suffering with early as well as advanced gastric cancer revealed insignificant variation. With gastric biopsies, the diagnostic accuracy was 88.5%. There were multifocal lesion in 29.2% of cases with a total of 85 foci. Type IIc was the predominant macroscopic lesion, followed by type III. The antrum and the angularis of the lesser curvature were the main sites for early gastric cancer. The intestinal and well-differentiated types of early gastric cancer were the main histologic features seen. Diffuse type and submucosal lesions were more frequent in 6 (14.6%) cases observed with regional lymph node metastases. Our study revealed that there has been a gradual increase in the number of gastric biopsies, early gastric cancer, and the early:advanced gastric cancer ratio.