The role of ultrasonography in gastric cancer staging was evaluated by comparing its findings with operative results in 216 gastric cancer patients and with CT findings of 71 patients in whom operation was not performed.
The results were as follows; Ultrasonography detected 177 cases of gastric lesion itself out of 216,63 cases of lymph node metastasis out of 175 in which 35 false positive ones were included, 34 cases of direct invasion out of 102, 17 cases of distant metastasis out of 32 and 16 cases of ascites out of 19. In comparing with CT, ultrasonography detected 61 cases of gastric tumor itself, 47 cases of lymph node metastasis, 31 cases of direct invasion, 47 cases of distant metastasis and 28 cases of ascites, while CT demonstrated 66 cases of gastric lesion, 61 cases of lymph node metastasis, 45 cases of direct invasion, 56 cases of distant metastasis and 29 cases of ascites.
These results indicate that ultrasonography shows low sensitivity, but has very high specificity in gastric cancer staging and can give us plenty of valuable informations on the extent of gastric cancer, though not so much as CT.
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