1985 Volume 22 Issue 3 Pages 235-244
We made a comparison between the 445 cases of advanced gastric carcinoma and early gastric carcinoma observed at our clinic, and the 176 cases of gastric carcinoma observed by Oshima-one of the authors-at Berlin Free University, and studied the gastric carcinoma in the aged over 60 in Japan and Germany. Within the cases of advanced gastric carcinoma, the proportion of the aged was 55.3% at our clinic and 78.5% in West Berlin, and early carcinoma in the aged was 34.6% at our clinic and 60.7% in Germany. The frequency of gastric carcinoma in the aged in Germany is obviously higher than that in Japan. At our clinic we had more male cases of gastric carcinoma in the aged. In the German cases, however, the proportion of male from 60s to 70 and older becomes lower, and in the cases over 70 the ratio of male and female finally becomes 1.0:1. These phenomena are probably dependent on the number of the aged and on the population structure. From the view of macroscopic form of advanced carcinoma in the aged, especially over 70, the sum of Borrmann types 1 and 2 increased, and Borrmann types 3 and 4 tended to decease at our clinic. But in the cases of West Berlin such tendencies were not found, and Borrmann types 3 and 4 in the aged did not decrease as much. Such tendencies are similar to the frequencies in histological forms. At our clinic the sum of papillary and tubular adenocarcinoma gradually increase from the 60s to the 70s and older, however, this cannot be observed in Germany. In the German cases the lesion of carcinoma are often larger than it of our clinic. Endoscopic atrophic gastritis was found obviously more in the gastric carcinoma cases of our clinic than the cases in Germany. It is thought that the characteristics of gastric carcinoma in the aged of Japan are more dependent on differentiated carcinima, and in the German cases undifferentiated carcinoma.
