[Pathological characteristics of early gastric cancer in 1477 Chinese patients]

Pathological characteristics of early gastric cancer in Chinese patients were analyzed. The 1477 cases were collected from 55 hospitals in China. The peak age of early gastric cancer patients was between 50-59 years old. The incidence in female before 50 years old was higher than that in male but reversely after this age. Highly differentiated carcinomas were more frequently found in those cancer foci of < or = 0.5 cm in diameter. It was also detected that the bigger of its size the deeper of its infiltration was in those cancer foci between < 6 cm. In these early gastric cancers, type IIc was the commonest one (39.5%) whereas the least one was type I (4.0%). The most common site was in lower part of the stomach and less found in the upper part. Prognosis of the highly differentiated carcinoma was better than that of others. More signet ring cell carcinomas were found in early gastric cancer than in advanced cases, especially in the intramucosal cancers. Lymphatic metastasis was more (17.0%) in type IIc+III and the least is in type I (3.6%). Comparing with the Japanese cases of early gastric cancer, it was found that the peak age of early gastric cancer patients in Chinese was 10 years younger than that in Japanese patients. In the latter, its highest incidence age was 70 years old and most of them occurred in middle part of the stomach. In Japanese patients, type III and mucinous adenocarcinoma of EAG was hardly found.