Early gastric cancer--special geriatric problems (author's transl)

With increasing age polypous growth predominates among early gastric cancers. These polypoid carcinomas corresponding to intestinal type carcinoma are seen together with chronic atrophic gastritis, in part they originate from precancerous conditions like adenoma or borderline lesion. Our experience in 86 patients with early gastric carcinomas shows that associated lesions like hyperplasiogenic polyps (17.4%), adenoma and borderline lesion (8.1%) and synchronous carcinoma (9.3%) are common. 5-year-survival rate corresponds with a figure between 70 and 100% according to the histological type and depth of infiltration with the Japanese literature. In geriatric patients therapy should be individually adopted. Local measures like surgical excision or endoscopic polypectomy may be used alternatively to classical surgery.     

The histology of gastric mucosa in B II-stomach (author's transl)

131 patients operated on for gastric ulcer according to Gillroth II were investigated with gastroscopy and biopsy. The histology of the gastric mucosa was correlated with the time elapsed since resection. In most cases gastritis shows no difference between anastomosis and stump. In up to 12% gastritis in the stump was more pronounced that at the anastomosis. In the stump any form of gastritis can be seen even more than 20 years afer resection. Atrophic changes are more often to be found in the resected stomach and develop more rapidly than in the normal stomach. They probably result from the coincidence of the lost protective function of the mucous membrane after resection of the gastrin-producing antrum with the potentially damaging action of the contents of small intestine.     

Association of ezrin expression in intestinal and diffuse gastric carcinoma with clinicopathological parameters and tumor type

AIM： To investigate the correlation between ezrin expression and types of gastric carcinoma and clinicopathological variables.
METHODS： We examined ezrin protein expression in 75 gastric carcinoma （53 intestinal types of adenocarcinoma, 22 diffuse types of carcinoma） tissues by immunohistochemistry. The results were compared with clinicopathological parameters such as tumor type, grade of tumor, clinical stage, presence of metastatic lymph node, and depth of invasion.
RESULTS： Ezrin immunostaining was positive in 43 cases （81.1%） of intestinal type and in 9 （40.9%） cases of diffuse type adenocarcinomas （P 〈 0.001）. In gastric carcinomas, the expression of ezrin protein correlated with the status of H py/ori and survival. There was no correlation between expression of ezrin with TNM stage and histological grade of gastric carcinomas （P 〉 0.05）.
CONCLUSION： The low expression of ezrin implicates the loss of adhesion in diffuse carcinomas. Furthermore, overexpression of ezrin in carcinomas with H pylori infection may be a genuine specific pathway in which Hpylori may cause/initiate gastric carcinoma.