Pathological diagnosis of early colorectal carcinoma and its clinical implications.

This review consists of 6 sections: (1) pathological diversity of cancer and the correlation between 'zokushutsu' (budding/sprouting) and lymph node metastasis; (2) genetic analysis and metastasis in the gastrointestinal tract; (3) conditions requiring resection after endoscopic treatment; (4) improvement of methods used to measure depth of submucosal invasion in the Ip type; (5) Japanese morphological classification of colorectal neoplastic lesions in terms of the clinical pathology and genetics of laterally spreading tumors; (6) villous tumors.