Early gastric cancer refers to the stage of gastric cancer that is limited to the gastric mucosa, while advanced gastric cancer refers to the one in which the tumor has broken through the muscle layer of the stomach or has spread. The time of these changes can vary from a few months to several years. It mainly depends on how malignant the gastric cancer is and how it spreads. Stomach cancers can grow and spread in different ways. They can grow through the stomach wall and invade nearby organs, and they can also spread to the lymphatic vessels and nearby lymph nodes. Because the stomach has a very rich organ of lymphatic vessels and lymph nodes, cancer cells to cross the bloodstream and spread (metastasize) to organs such as the liver, lungs and bones, which can make it more difficult to treat. This time course is sometimes slower and sometimes faster. It’s really the same as cars driving down the road; some of these cars drive very fast and some drive very slowly. Such different differences can cause different times of metastasis and spread. The course of gastric cancer also depends on the degree of malignancy of gastric cancer itself. This degree of malignancy is determined by the degree of differentiation of the cancerous tissue. The number of cancer cells replicates and multiplies in the pattern of 1 to 2, 2 to 4, and 4 to 16 without limit. Some highly malignant ones change rapidly, while some less malignant ones change slowly. In fact, there is no fixed time for the change from early stage to advanced stage of gastric cancer. The time of change mainly depends on the way of spread and the malignancy degree of tumor, which is very different for each patient. If once diagnosed, the best way is to actively treat it.