Analysis of Electronic Endoscopic Image of Intramucosal Gastric Carcinoma Using Hemoglobin Index

It has been suggested that the endoscopic color of intramucosal gastric carcinoma is correlated with mucosal vascularity within the carcinomatous tissue. The development of electronic endoscopy has made it possible to quantitatively measure the mucosal hemoglobin volume, using a hemoglobin index. The aim of this study was to make a software program to calculate the hemoglobin index (IHb) and then investigate whether the mucosal IHb determined from the electronic endoscopic data is a useful marker for evaluating the color of intramucosal gastric carcinoma, in particular with regard to its value for discriminating between the histologic types. The mean values of IHb for the carcinoma (IHb-C) and the mean values of IHb for the surrounding non-cancerous mucosa (IHb-N) were calculated in 75 intestinal-type and 34 diffuse-type gastric carcinomas. Then, we analyzed the ratio of the IHb-C to IHb-N. The mean IHb-C/IHb-N ratio in the intestinal-type carcinoma group was higher than that in the diffuse-type carcinoma group (1.28$\pm$0.19 vs. 0.81$\pm$0.18, respectively, p<0.001). When the cut-off point of the C/N ratio was set at 1.00, the accuracy rate, the sensitivity, the specificity, and the positive and negative predictive values of a C/R ratio below 1.00 for the differential diagnosis of diffuse-type carcinoma from intestinal-type carcinoma were 94.5%, 94.1%, 94.7%, 88.9% and 97.3%, respectively. IHb is useful for quantitative measurement of the endoscopic color in intramucosal gastric carcinoma and the IHb-C/IHb-N ratio would be helpful in distinguishing diffuse-type carcinoma from intestinal-type carcinoma.