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 hav e described non-specific aspects, often suggestive for benign conditions, t he endoscopy reveals a wide range of gastric mucosal changes both at diagno sis 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 mu cosal hyperaemia in 1 case and in normal-appearing mucosa of the stomach in the second case. The patients were successfully treated with anti-Helicoba cter pylori therapy At 18 and 12 months of follow-up, respectively, the pat ients were disease-free. The bland appearance of this disease in some patie nts may reflect the early diagnosis of the tumor. Even if endoscopy and ech oendoscopy often constitute useful and reliable diagnostic procedures, in t he early phases of the tumor the histologic evaluation of endoscopic biopsi es including immunohistochemistry represent the diagnostic procedure more r eliably to detect this neoplasm.