title: Early gastric cancer: is it a distinct clinical entity?
abstract: Of 199 patients with gastric cancer seen at The Montreal General Hospital between 1970 and 1981, 104 were considered to have had a curative resection, and 26 of these were early gastric cancers (EGC). The authors compared early gastric cancers with advanced, but resectable, gastric cancers to determine whether EGC is a distinct entity or a stage in the progressive evolution of gastric cancer. They found that depth of invasion was the primary determinant of outcome, but that there was no discrete cut-off point between the depth of invasion associated with early and with advanced gastric cancers. The pathological features normally associated with a favourable prognosis in gastric cancer, such as absence of lymph-node metastases, an expanding growth pattern, intestinal metaplasia, and well-differentiated histologic features correlated highly with depth of invasion but did not appear to change abruptly between EGC and advanced resectable lesions. The authors conclude that EGC is not a distinct pathological or clinical entity but a stage in the progressive growth of gastric cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Montreal General Hospital, McGill University, PQ.
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Hampson
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shennib
authors.forename: J O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Lough
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Fried
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000473:pathology*