Gastric carcinoma in young adults in Japan.

Forty-nine cases of young adults with carcinoma of the stomach were reviewed. The occurrence of this tumor had a percentage rate of 2.7 of the total of 1767 Japanese patients with stomach carcinoma, with a male to female ratio of 1.0:0.88. The most common complaint observed was epigastric pain (45.7%). In the majority of patients, the period from the onset of symptoms to the time of diagnosis was over two years (49%). Thirty-nine out of 49 patients had resection of the stomach and a consequent operation was curative in 55.1% of them. The overall 5-year survival rate was 26.8%. However, the 5-year survival rate for the curative operation was 42.6% particularly in early gastric carcinoma without any serosal invasion and no patients died from carcinoma of the stomach. These results indicate that early diagnosis is very important to improve the curing rate of this disease in young adults.