Occurrence of esophageal carcinoma after gastrectomy.

A review of data on 548 patients with primary squamous cell carcinoma revealed that 24 (4.4%) had had gastrectomy. Although the interval of the gastrectomy due to peptic ulcer or gastric cancer and esophageal cancer was 13.4 +/- 7.9 and 5.8 +/- 4.2 years, respectively, this difference was thought to be due only to the occurrence of each disease. The incidence of the occurrence of the lower esophageal cancer after gastrectomy was 29.2%, not significantly higher than the 22.4% incidence of lower esophageal cancer in overall cases. Histopathological investigation of the 13 resected esophageal cancer tissues from gastrectomized patients revealed a mild esophagitis in some cases, with no significant histologic characteristics. Thus esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and previous gastrectomy may be incidentally related.