Early gastric carcinoma in Japanese patients under 30 years of age.

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.