Biopsy from the base of gastric ulcer may find gastric cancer earlier

Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignancies in the world; however, its exact mechanism of development which may be relevant to many factors is still unclear, such as age, diet. Helicobacter pylori infection, smoking, polyps, chronic gastric ulcer and so on. Chronic gastric ulcer is considered as precancerous lesion of gastric cancer. The above-mentioned diseases are usually diagnosed by endoscopy and biopsy. In general, biopsy specimens are usually taken from the edges of lesions, seldom from the base. In patients with chronic gastric ulcer, especially healing or healed benign ulcer, we took the biopsy specimens from both the edges and the base of ulcers in the follow-up. Malignant lesions were found in several cases of chronic gastric ulcer, in which specimens were taken from the base of lesions. Therefore, we hypothesize that biopsy from the base of healing or healed chronic gastric ulcer in the second or third endoscopy may find gastric cancer earlier than traditional biopsy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.