[Value of endosonography in diagnosis of diffusely growing stomach carcinomas]

The diagnosis of diffuse type gastric carcinoma is very difficult. The delay of diagnosis is often due to false-negative endoscopic and histologic evaluation. The architecture of the stomach can be clearly visualized by endosonography. Therefore, already minor destructions of the gastric layers can be found. The endosonographic picture includes the presence of the layers, which are larger and of irregular contour. In infiltrating gastric cancer typically the submucosal layer and the muscularis are concentrically enlarged and appear folded. Based on the endosonographic picture diffuse type gastric carcinoma has been diagnosed in 32 patients. When compared to the histologic diagnosis after gastrectomy or autopsy the accuracy of the endosonographic diagnosis was 87.5%, (28 out of 32 patients). From the remaining four patients diagnosed to have diffuse type gastric cancer by endosonography three patients turned out to have malignant infiltrating tumors of different histologies. Therefore, the positive predictive value of endosonography in detection of infiltrating malignant tumors was 96.8% in our group. In contrast the accuracy of preoperative histologic diagnosis by biopsies was only 58%. Suspicious results of gastroscopy, especially in combination with a negative biopsy, should lead to further evaluation by endosonography to detect diffuse type gastric cancer earlier.