Clinical and Pathological Features of Gastric Carcinoma in the Young

Twenty-two cases, or 23 lesions, of the so-called "gastric cancer in the young" under the age of 30 years were studied, in comparison with the adult cases in the fifties and the elderly cases over 70 years, and their unique clinico-pathological features were described. The early symptoms of gastric carcinoma in the young patients are similar to those of peptic ulcer, and often diagnosed as gastric ulcer at first and treated as ulcer patients, but peptic ulcer was found in only 9.1 %. All cases in this study had gastrectomy. Twelve of 23 lesions were early gastric carcinoma of superficial depressed type. All other advanced cancer belonged to the infiltrative type, and there was no localized type. Of these 23 lesions, 70% located in the middle third region of the stomach. Histologically, 87.0 % were poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. Involvement of the serosa of gastric wall was found in only 36.4%, and lymph node metastasis was negative in 54.5%. Eighteen of 22 patients are still alive at this moment, and 13 of them (59.1%) survived longer than five years after surgery, and are well without any sign of recurrence. Prognosis of gastric cancer in young patients was regarded as poor owing to its biological specificity, but actually it could be as good as in other age groups, if the diagnosis was made early enough and lesions were removed properly. For that purpose, needed are repeated endoscopic and biopsy examinations as often as possible in all cases of gastric ulcer of the young.