A case of early gastric cancer with solitary metastasis to the pleura.

The incidence of early gastric cancer (EGC) has increased to >50% in Korea owing to a higher detection rate caused by rapid advances in diagnostic instrumentation. EGC with distant metastasis has been rarely reported. Here, we report the case of a 76-year-old woman in whom general EGC was initially diagnosed by endoscopy and endoscopic ultrasonography. She subsequently underwent endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD). Histological examination of the ESD specimen revealed that neoplastic cells were located predominantly in the submucosal layer and submucosal lymphatic channels. Metastatic cancer cells were also found in the pleural effusion. After conducting all analyses, including immunohistochemical staining, we concluded that the patient had primary EGC with pleural metastasis.