Multiple early gastric cancer (MEGC) accounts for between 4.5% and 11.7% of all early gastric cancers (EGC). We investigated the treatment of MEGC from the viewpoint of the clinicopathologic features of the disease.

2,281 patients with EGC underwent gastric resection at the Department of Surgery, Severance Hospital during the 11 years between January 1994 and December 2004 and we carried out a retrospective analysis of these patients.

There were 91 cases of synchronous MEGC (4.0%) according to the diagnostic criteria of Moertel: there were 81 double, 9 triple and 1 quadruple lesions. Of the 102 accessory lesions, 64 (62.7%) were less than 10 mm in diameter and 83 (81.4%) were located in the same region as the main lesion. The most frequent histologic type of main lesion was a well differentiated adenocarcinoma, which was found in 52 cases (57.1%). There were 49 mucosal main lesions and 42 submucosal main lesions. Lymph node metastasis was detected in 6 cases (6.6%): 1 in mucosal lesions and 5 in submucosal main lesions.

Solitary EGC and MEGC had very similar clinopathological features and a similar prognosis. Therefore, we believe that the general EGC treatment guidelines can be applied for multiple EGC. It is important to evaluate the whole stomach before and during the operation and then after examining the resected specimen.