Statistical analysis of the surgical materials of stomach cancer in Japan.

Two thousand three hundred seventy gastric cancers from 2173 patients for which surgical resections were performed at the Tokyo University Hospital from 1967 to 1985, were analyzed. Cancers were classified into diffuse adenocarcinomas, intestinal adenocarcinomas, and an unclassified group. The proportional rate of the intestinal type was higher in the old than in the young, and higher in men than in women. The reverse was true of the diffuse type. The intestinal-diffuse ratio had increased recently, especially in patients with early cancers and in patients in their 50s and 60s, which suggested the efficacy of early screening methods for gastric cancers.