Pathologic diagnosis is the gold standard for confirming the diagnosis of gastric cancer, but a negative biopsy result does not completely rule out the possibility of gastric cancer.
False-negative pathology biopsies may also occur for the following reasons:
- Some lesions in early gastric cancer have a similar morphology under gastroscopy as benign lesions such as gastritis, which can be easily missed or misdiagnosed during gastroscopic biopsy.
- Gastroscopy has some blind spots.
- It is more difficult to clip cancerous tissue when the cancer is growing infiltratively under the mucosa.
- The surface of the lesion and the surrounding tissues are edematous, and the inappropriate site, insufficient depth, or insufficient amount of the clamped tissue may also affect the pathological diagnosis.
For those with negative biopsies, if gastric cancer is strongly suspected based on clinical manifestations, imaging, and tumor markers, physicians will usually send the biopsy multiple times in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of false negatives.