Frieder Berr • Tsuneo Oyama
Thierry Ponchon • Naohisa Yahagi
Editors

2014

Endoscopic Diagnosis and Therapeutic Decisions

Cancer has traditionally been defined by proof of invasively growing dysplastic epithelia in the Western world, and gastrointestinal oncology has attempted to beat cancer at the invasive stage. Any mucosa-invasive lesion (pM2/3) must yet have a non-invasive precursor lesion. In Japan, therefore, cancer has been defi ned by cytologic criteria – severely dysplastic epithelial cells – allowing earlier diagnosis in even the pre-invasive stage.