Background
: Gastric cancer is the most frequent life threatening cancer in Korean and early detection is important because five-year survival after resection of early gastric cancer is quite more frequent than that of advanced gastric cancer. Unfortunately there are rarely symptoms associated with early stage gastric cancer. Practical mass screening and periodic health examination are important to facilitate early diagnosis.
In the this study, we compared medical care utilization and preventive health examination between early gastric cancer patients and advanced gastric cancer patients.

Methods : We reviewed 94 early gastric cancer patients and 97 advanced gastric cancer patients from my 1993 to June 1995 by self-administered questionnaires. we compared chief complaints associated with gastric cancer, perceived severity of chief complaints, duration of symptoms before hospital visit, early management behaviors for the chief complaints and health examination frequency between two groups.

Resultsy The most common chief complaint was epigastria pain in both group. and there was no significant difference between two groups. but advanced gastric cancer group perceived chief complaints more seriously than early gastric cancer group.(P<0.05) Early gastric cancer group visited hospital earlier than advanced gastric cancer group for the management of chief complaints.(P<0.01) The most frequent early management behavior was hospital visits in early gastric cancer group. In advanced gastric cancer group, drug store visit was the most common early management behavior. In 3 or more health examination frequncy, early gastric cancer group had more frequent health examination than advanced gastric cancer group.

Conclusion : Early gastric cancer group had appropriate medical care utilization in relation to the symptom duration and to the early management behaviors. Periodicity and regularity of health examination is important for the early detection of gastric cancer.