Synchronous and metachronous cancer of the stomach.

In the last 10 years 407 cancers of the stomach were observed at the 1st Department of Surgery of the University of Bologna. 248 were subjected to curative resection (59 were Early Gastric Cancers and 189 were Advanced Gastric Cancers). Among them 14 gastric cancers with multiple foci (synchronous cancers) and 7 cancers of the gastric stump (metachronous cancers) were found in the same period. Each lesion was histologically proved and a tract of normal mucosa was found between two cancers both macroscopically and microscopically. The frequency of primary multiple tumoural foci was higher for early Gastric Cancer (E.G.C.) in comparison with Advanced Gastric Cancer (A.G.C.), being 8.4% for the former and 4.7% for the latter.