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The authors studied endocrine apparatus of the mucous membrane of 53 stomachs in various forms of carcinoma. Silver impregnation and electron microscopy were used as well as routine histology and histochemistry. All the tumors were divided into endocrine-cell and non-endocrine-cell tumors (ET and NET). Cells of the diffuse endocrine system take an important part in the development of the background and pretumorous processes in the stomach mucous membrane. Endocrinocyte hyperplasia, degree I and II, of the mucous membrane of the antrum and enterolysation foci was the background for all NET. Endocrinocyte hyperplasia was more pronounced (degree II and III) in ET and spread to the fundal glands being combined with endocrinocyte dysplasia and metaplasia. These changes are assessed as precancerous for tumors with high content of endocrinocytes.

Mucous membrane from different parts of the stomach has been studied in 53 surgical cases of stomach carcinoma. All the tumours were subdivided into endocrine-cell (EC) and non-endocrine-cell. The background in all cases was chronic gastritis which was most pronounced at the border with tumour and in the pyloro-antral part of the stomach. Hyperplasia of the fundal glands with hyperfunction of the chief and lining cells, hypersecretion of foveal epithelium, pseudo-pyloric metaplasia and helicobacteriosis were more frequent in EC-carcinomas. Dysplastic epithelial changes in EC were found in the lower third of the necks and terminal regions of the intermediar and pseudo-pyloric glands and in some cases in the foveolar epithelium and intestinal crypts. These features of the background and precancerous lesions in EC should be taken into consideration in diagnosis.