Incidence, diagnosis and significance of multiple gastric cancer

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Abstract
Of 2790 patients with gastric cancer undergoing surgery between January 1978 and December 1993, 160 (with 356 neoplastic lesions) had synchronous multiple cancer. Of these lesions 271 (76 per cent) were early cancers. Only 85 (53 per cent) of the 160 patients were diagnosed before operation as having multiple cancer; 69 further patients (43 per cent) were diagnosed during the course of the operation. Small flat (IIb) and depressed (IIc) type lesions had a propensity to be missed before operation. The incidence of multiple cancer was relatively low, indicating that several microscopic lesions might have been overlooked in this series. There has, however, only been one patient (1 per cent) with subsequent cancer of the gastric remnant of 126 with multiple cancer and postoperative gastric remnants over the past 16 years. This might be because of co-resection of unrecognized lesions by distal gastrectomy in 68 per cent of the patients. Alternatively some microscopic cancers might not invariably be destined to grow into clinically significant lesions over 10 or more years.