[Histological classification of early gastric cancer in 300 cases - clinical significance (author's transl)].

Early gastric cancers of 300 patients were evaluated using the Lauren approach of histological classification, that is to say distinguishing between a diffuse and an intestinal type of cancer. It turned out, that the role of gastritis in the pathogenesis of early gastric cancer is rather ill defined. A high percentage of early cancers of the diffuse type were found in gastric mucosa showing no inflammatory changes whatsoever. From the point of view of pathogenesis both types of cancer have to be considered as separate nosological entities. This difference is most obvious during the early stages of development. Therapeutical consequences will certainly have to be drawn in the future from this subdivision for patients at risque. Early gastric cancer presents in a high percentage of cases at first as an ulcerative lesion; this stresses the importance of careful gastroscopic and bioptic examination of patients with gastric ulcera, and of frequent examinations of these patients.