Histologic and cytologic study of multiple endoscopic biopsy of gastric ulcer.

ABSTRACT

A prospective study was carried out on 50 patients with an endoscopicaly proven gastric ulcer. In each patient, multiple endoscopic biopsy specimens were taken for histologic and examinations. In 44 group-A patients with endoscopicaly benign gastric ulcers, both histologic and cytologic examinations failed to discover an overlooked malignant ulcer. This did not imply, however, that both methods were useless in this respect, as the number of patients studied was not very large. In 6 group-B patients in whom a malignant gastric ulcer was evident of otherwise suspected endoscopicaly, both histologic and cytologic examinations did not appear to offer any extra benefit over that of the histologic examination alone. A false-positive reading for malignancy was encountered with the cytologic interpretation in 1 patient of groups B. The authors thus consider that for most endoscopic units in Thailand, multiple endoscopic biopsy sampling for a histologic study with or without a cytlogic study may be reserved only for those gastric ulcer cases in which there is an endoscopic suspicion of an underlying malignancy. The cytologic examination may be implemented only if such facility is readily available. Finally, the “touch-smear” technique for collecting a cytologic specimen would be a convenient and reliable method to be employed.