Abstract
Gastric endoscopy is regarded as a valuable method in the diagnosis of gastric carcinoma. If the surface of gastric mucosa is covered with carcinoma tissue, the extent of carcinoma lesion wil be easily diagnosed by the endoscope. However, carcinoma tissue often infiltrates directly beneath the benign superficial epithelium, so endoscopic diagnosis for such subsuperficial carcinoma infiltration is sometimes difficult. The authors intend to clarify the macroscopic characteristics of subsuperficial carcinoma infiltration. Fifty lesions of 34 cases were revealed to have subsuperficial carcinoma infiltration over 1cm in diameter. The histologic types of these cases were only mucinous adenocarcinoma and signet ring cell carcinoma. Using the endoscopic pictures and the pictures of fresh surgical specimens, the surface color and superficial characteristics were studied. Subsuperf icial carcinoma infiltration locarized within the mucosa or from the proper muscle to the serosa did not change endoscopically the surface color of the gastric mucosa. While, the surface color of nearly half of the lesions which had severe grade of subsuperficial carcinoma infiltration turned to red as compared with the surface color of neighboring non-carcinomatous area. The study of surface color using fresh surgical specimen gave the almost same result as that of endoscopy. The surface of the gastric mucosa of almost all lesions with subsuperficial carcinoma infiltration endoscopically showed an irregular or elevated nature, but the surface of a few lesions was the same as that of the mucosa without carcinoma infiltration. The study of the superficial characteristics using fresh surgical specimens gave a little different results as compared with the endoscopic study. This result was the same as that mentioned in the previous report.
