[Synchronous multiple early gastric cancer; study of surgically resected stomach]

Synchronous multiple early gastric cancer (SMEGC) was found in 202(20.9%) of 966 surgically resected primary early gastric cancer (EGC). The incidence of SMEGC clinically diagnosed was 9.0%, and that increased to 19.3% by pathological macroscopical examine. SMEGC was more frequent in male patients than in female patients. Patients older than 60 years old occupied 80.7% of SMEGC. 72.8% of SMEGC had two and 27.2% had more than three EGC. 56.7% of SMEGC had intramucosal cancers, 36.4% had submucosa-invasing and intramucosal cancer, and 6.9% had submucosa-invasing cancers. In 78.7% of SMEGC, the main and associated cancer were composed of differentiated type adenocarcinoma, 20.7% of SMEGC synchronously contained gastric adenoma. We should be cautious that other EGC may be present when preoperative diagnosing the patients with EGC and macroscopical examining the resected stomach.