Early Gastric Cancer

Overview

Early gastric cancer is arbitrarily defined as carcinoma characterized by invasion of the tumour restricted to the mucosal and submucosal connective tisue, not penetrating the tunica muscularis, where the extent of the tumour nor the presence of metastatic affection of the lymph nodes, are decisive. The definition of this clinical entity, as compared with other types of gastric carcinomas, is due to the special biological behaviour of early carcinomas with a five-year period of survival of more than 90% patients regardless of the presence or absence of nodal metastases. In the contemporary literature substantial regional differences are described in the incidence of early gastric carcinoma and some doubt persists whether this form of gastric carcinoma is adequately diagnosed. We decided therefore to make a retrospective study focused on gastric carcinoma based on the bioptic material of Hlava’s First Institute of Pathology at the First Medical Faculty, Prague from 1992-1998. The final group included 415 patients with gastric carcinoma. Among these early gastric carcinoma was confirmed in 21 patients, i.e. in 5% which is consistent with other studies based on bioptic material from so-called „western“ regions, i.e. Europe and America.

Key words:
early gastric cancer - histological classification - retrospective study