Twenty two cases in early gastric cancer underwent the endoscopic Nd-YAG therapy. Since the eligibility of this treatment was restricted to those patients who accompanied severe disease for gastric surgery, the average age was 71.5 years old. Eight cases (36%) accompanied other synchronus or metachronous multicentric gastric cancer. No patient died from gastric cancer after the treatment and 4 patients survived more than 5 years. Because all small cancers less than 1 cm in diameter were perfectly cured with laser irradiation, the applicable lesions for this treatment should be limited to the cancer less than 1 cm in size. The use of the lateral-aiming or contact type probe, the early re-irradiation after the initial treatment and the combined laser irradiation with electrocautery will promote efficacy of the laser treatment.
