Early gastric cancer associated with synchronous multiple liver metastasis--two rare cases

From 1976 to 1991, 1,640 cases of gastric cancer were resected in our department. Of these, 659 (40.2%) cases were early gastric cancer (EGC). The prognosis after resection of an EGC is generally good, with a 5-year survival rate of 95%. The incidence of an EGC with synchronous liver metastasis is very rare. To our knowledge, only 15 cases of an EGC with synchronous liver metastasis have been reported in the Japanese literature. From 10 cases adequately described the EGC with synchronous liver metastasis derived only from sm-cancers (cancers confined to the submucosa) of medullary type, histologically, more commonly occurring in males than EGC generally, (of elevated type) and with positive lymph node metastasis. Here we report two additional rare cases of EGC with liver metastasis.