Figure 8

A schematic chart of 3 lineages in the development of gland-forming gastric neoplasms. This figure is based on Figure 6 and similarly shows the size distribution of 3 lineages: stable, intermediate and unstable. These lineages may be determined by the profile of genomic CNAs in the incipient phase of tumour growth. The growth of stable tumours may be limited in the mucosa and plateau around the size of 1 cm, whereas the unstable tumours may largely occur as de-novo carcinomas and partly derive from intraepithelial neoplasia, accumulate genetic changes and become intramucosal and deeply invasive tumours. The dotted line in unstable lineage indicates small de-novo carcinomas, which were not examined in the present study. The dotted line in intermediate lineage shows that the outcome of this lineage remains to be clarified. Regarding Cm and Cd, see the legend for Table 1.