A CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL STUDY OF 205 CASES OF EARLY GASTRIC CANCER

Abstract

Early gastric cancer was statistically examined in 205 cases consisting of 93 cases of m cancer and 112 cases of sm cancer treated in our hospital over the last 9 years. Early gastric cancer accounted for 33.2% of all resected cases of gastric cancer, showing a tendency to increase in number annually. The mean age of the patients was 59.1 years, and the male-female ratio was 2.25:1. Average maximum tumor diameter was 3.28 cm, and approximately 70% of them were differentiated carcinoma. The tumors, which were mostly of depressed type, were found to develop frequently in the M and A regions as well as in the lesser curvature. Rates of lymph node metastasis, lymphatic vessel invasion and venous invasion were 7.8%, 13.7% and 2.4%, respectively. Cases of sm cancer showed a significantly larger maximum tumor diameter, a smaller proportion of sig type and a larger proportion of por type than m cancer. It also presented higher rates of lymph node metastasis and lymphatic vessel invasion in comparison with m cancer. Patients with sm cancer of the lesser curvature, intermediate type, ly (+) type or v (+) type tended to show a significantly high rate of lymph node metastasis. However, no positive conditions indicating reduced lymph node dissection were found. It can be said that, at present, dissection of the group 2 lymph nodes is necessary in the treatment of early gastric cancer, so that further studies on clinical cases should be done to resolve the above question.