A new endoscopic classification system of early-stage esophageal carcinoma and its usefulness in assessing the infiltration depth of esophageal carcinoma.

The growth pattern, height, and depth of early esophageal carcinoma were observed under gastroscopy and endoscopic ultrasonography. The infiltration depth of carcinomas was determined pathologically. Early esophageal carcinomas were classified into five types by endoscopy: surface propagating growth, intraluminal growth, intramural growth, bilateral growth, and mixed growth. Intramucosal and submucosal carcinomas were differentiated on the basis of the different types, height of intraluminal growth and bilateral growth, and depth of intramural growth type. The accuracy of differentiate diagnosis was 87.2%. Our results indicate that this new endoscopic classification system can accurately differentiate intramucosal and submucosal infiltration of early-stage esophageal carcinomas.