ASSOCIATION OF PERNICIOUS ANEMIA AND CARCINOMA OF THE STOMACH

Abstract

Before the introduction of liver therapy in 1926, the average duration of life after the onset of pernicious anemia was five years, and the majority of persons afflicted with the disease were dead after three years.¹ This short interval did not permit the development of many complications. At postmortem examination of subjects who had died of pernicious anemia, however, carcinoma of the stomach was frequently encountered. In 1876 Quincke made the first mention of the association of pernicious anemia and carcinoma of the stomach in the same case.² Israel in 1890 and Roux in 1893 each reported a similar case.^1b Before the turn of the century 3 more cases were reported by Lubarsch, and another was reported by Engle. The case reported by Waterfield³ and Shackle in 1923 is perhaps the earliest example in the medical literature in which the association of the two conditions was