Contribution of endoscopy to diagnosis and treatment of gastric cancer.

The contribution of fiberoptic endoscopy to the diagnosis and treatment of gastric cancer was evaluated in 174 patients. For the purpose of staging, they were compared with 99 patients admitted to the same institution in the pre-endoscopy era. The frequency of minimal gastric cancer (stages I and II) was 16.5 percent in the patients who had esophagogastroduodenoscopy in contrast with only 4 percent in the patients without endoscopy. Fiberoptic endoscopy was superior to barium gastrography in the diagnosis of minimal gastric cancer. The effect of early diagnosis on survival was such that at 3 year follow-up, the cumulative proportion of stage I and II patients still alive was 85 percent compared with only 17.5 percent of stage III patients and none of the stage IV patients.