Minimal endoscopic aspects of gastric low-grade malt-lymphoma

Low-grade gastric MALT-lymphoma is a neoplasia with a very indolent course and an excellent prognosis. Even if the most common endoscopic findings have described non-specific aspects, often suggestive for benign conditions, the endoscopy reveals a wide range of gastric mucosal changes both at diagnosis and at relapse. We report 2 cases of low-grade gastric MALT-lymphoma in which the diagnosis was made casually because the endoscopic presentation consisted only in mucosal hyperaemia in 1 case and in normal-appearing mucosa of the stomach in the second case. The patients were successfully treated with anti-Helicobacter pylori therapy. At 18 and 12 months of follow-up, respectively, the patients were disease-free. The bland appearance of this disease in some patients may reflect the early diagnosis of the tumor. Even if endoscopy and echoendoscopy often constitute useful and reliable diagnostic procedures, in the early phases of the tumor the histologic evaluation of endoscopic biopsies including immunohistochemistry represent the diagnostic procedure more reliably to detect this neoplasm.