[Early diagnosis of gastric cancer, a utopian idea? (author's transl)]

In order to improve the prognosis of gastric cancer it is necessary to discover the lesions at an early stage of the disease. Early gastric cancer has an excellent prognosis with a postoperative survival rate of 77 to 99%. Since 1970 we have diagnosed 76 cases of early gastric cancer and the percentage of early cancer out of all gastric cancers increased from 10 to 23%. This improvement is based on selected examinations of high-risk patients, on better diagnostic methods and on our better knowledge of macroscopic and histological appearance. In particular, the use of snare biopsy in protruding lesions and the implementation of continuous endoscopic-bioptic follow-up of all gastric ulcers until complete healing is achieved have improved the accuracy of histological verification. In 16 out of 76 cases of early gastric cancer a multicentric growth was observed. The diagnosis of gastric cancer at an early stage is not an utopian idea. It is reality when we pay attention to the aspects mentioned before.