Helicobacter infection 2 to 3 times more likely to have stomach cancer...It's the second most common after thyroid cancer
Jun 03, 2025
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Gastric cancer refers to a malignant tumor in the stomach, mainly adenocarcinoma that occurs in adenocytes of the gastric mucosa. About 95% of all gastric cancers are adenocarcinoma, and there are also various forms such as lymphoma and gastrointestinal interstitial tumors (GIST).
"Gastric cancer is caused by a combination of factors, and Helicobacter pylori causes inflammation of the stomach and leads to genetic mutations as it progresses to atrophic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, and dysplasia, and people infected with Helicobacter are two to three times more likely to develop gastric cancer than those who do not. In addition, salty food, burned food, intake of food containing nitrate compounds, smoking and drinking, and family history are reported to increase the risk of stomach cancer", he explained.
Gastric cancer has few specific symptoms early on, so it is often accidentally detected by medical examination, and there are few obvious symptoms in the early stages of gastric cancer, but as the cancer progresses, the symptoms become clear and affect daily life.
Director Lee Jung-yeon said, `The 5-year survival rate of gastric cancer in Korea is 78.4%, which is very high worldwide. In particular, in the case of early gastric cancer, where cancer is confined to the gastric mucosa or submucosa, the 5-year survival rate is over 90%, so it is very important to detect and treat it early. "In the early stages of gastric cancer, symptoms such as epigastric discomfort and bloating, indigestion, weight loss and loss of appetite, anemia of unknown cause may appear. In the case of advanced gastric cancer, vomiting due to obstruction of the pylorus, the boundary between the stomach and the duodenum, hemoptysis or black stools may occur. When gastric cancer invades the esophagus, dysphagia that is difficult to," he said.
Treatment of gastric cancer depends on the progression of the disease.
Director Lee Jung-yeon said, `Although early gastric cancer can be treated with an endoscope if the size is small and there is no possibility of lymph node metastasis, early gastric cancer beyond the endoscopic treatment criteria and advanced gastric cancer in stages 2 to 3 require surgery to remove cancer and surrounding lymph nodes. When cancer progresses further and spreads to distant lymph nodes rather than to the lymph nodes around the stomach or spreads to other organs, chemotherapy is performed, and targeted or immuno-cancer treatments are also performed."
In an era when one in 20 Koreans is a cancer patient, gastric cancer is a burdensome disease that greatly threatens daily life, but early gastric cancer is mostly found accidentally during medical examinations because most of them have no special symptoms. Therefore, it is important to detect early through regular endoscopic examination even if there are no symptoms.
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This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
