The clinicopathological characteristics of early gastric carcinoma (EGC) in 23 Japanese under 30 years of age were reviewed and the findings compared with data on 53 patients over age 70. In the young patients, there was a female preponderance, a macroscopic solitary lesion and the cancer was of the poorly differentiated type without intestinal metaplasia in the surrounding mucosa. In the old patients, there was a male preponderance; about half the number of patients had macroscopically elevated lesions and 10 of the 53 had a multifocal gastric carcinoma. Here, most lesions were well to moderately differentiated types with intestinal metaplasia in the surrounding area. Growth patterns of EGC in the young patients were analysed. Curative operations with dissection of regional lymph nodes were done in all the young patients. Metastases to the regional lymph nodes were present in only 2 of 23. Twenty of twenty-three followed for 5 years or longer are well.
Gastric cancer concomitant with pregnancy is rare. In order to determine the clinical problems and practical guidelines on this particular subject, 61 Japanese patients were analyzed for clinical features and the results of obstetric and surgical treatment corresponding to the time of detection of the gastric cancer during the gestational period. The data indicated a limitation in diagnostic approaches caused by pregnancy and difficulty in saving both the mother and the fetus. Only 20 (58.8%) of the pregnant women underwent both obstetric treatment for the fetus and surgical treatment for gastric cancer. Fifty-nine of the gastric cancer cases (96.7%) were advanced and resectability was consistently low (47.5%). The patients who received gastrectomy had a high incidence of hospital death (22.7%) and a poor prognosis--21.1% 3-year survival. Based on the authors' cases of both early and advanced gastric cancer associated with pregnancy, the importance of early detection by gastroendoscopy is emphasized.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.