Since Sep. 1978, 123 patients of gastric cancer were operated in our hospital, 32 patients of them were detected by gastric mass rurvey (MS group) and 91 were outpatients (OP group).
Clinically and histologically, we have reviewed and compared the two groups about the process of detection, the treatment and the prognosis.
Results are as follows.
(1) There were much more patients in MS group than OP group who had no symptom and no complaining period and who had experienced mass survey more frequently. It resulted that the ratio of early gastric cancer of MS and OP group were 68.8% and 33.0% and those who received curative resection were 96.9% and 61.5% respectively.
(2) The cancer occupying the upper third of the stomach was rarely seen and tumorsize less than 0.5 cm was never seen in MS group, but the both were not rarely in OP group which had been examined mainly by endoscopy.
Of course we know that we must make efforts to find these lesions from mass survey. But endoscopical method is more profitable than indirect fluoroscopy to find fine lesions, so it is suggested that endoscopy mass survey will be more useful.
(3) According to The General Rules For The Gastric Cancer Study In Surgery And Pathology (Japanese Research Society For Gastric Cancer), we compared the prognosis of the two groups concerning 4 matters of the patients who were received absolute curative resection, whose cancer invaded to serosa, who had no evidence of regional lymph node involvement and whose histological stage was I or II.
The result was that MS group was superior to OP group on all matters.
The causes, we supposed, were the facts of OP group that many patients were in bad preoperative condition, so the dissections were not made successfully, and that many died of other malady.
Five year survival rates of MS and OP group were 89.8% and 39.0% respectively.