Risk of gastric cancer among Korean familial adenomatous polyposis patients. Report of three cases.

Gastric cancer has been recognized as an extracolonic manifestation in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). In Korea, gastric cancer is the most common malignant neoplasm. In a recent survey, we collected data from 72 Korean patients with FAP. Among them, three (4.2 percent) were found to have associated gastric cancer. This incidence of gastric cancer in our series is much higher than the previous reports from Japan and other countries. The expected cumulative incidence of gastric cancer among these 72 patients was 0.44, which gives the standardized incidence ratio of 6.9 (95 percent CI, 1.4-20.1). This difference in incidence of gastric cancer was statistically significant (P less than 0.05), which implies that patients with FAP are at significantly higher risk of developing gastric cancer compared with the general population in Korea. These findings confirm an increased risk of gastric cancer in FAP patients, even in a region where gastric cancer is highly prevalent.