Fig. 1 a.

Reddish differentiated type gastric carcinoma in the antrum. b Magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging (ME-NBI) (white box in a indicates location of b; white dashed line: demarcation line of the carcinoma). c Microvessels extracted from the ME-NBI image. NBI vascular density was 11.23 % in the carcinoma and 3.61 % in the surrounding uninvolved mucosa (white dashed line: demarcation line of the carcinoma). d Photomicrograph showing a CD34 immunostained tumor tissue section. e Microvessels in the intramucosal layer were extracted. The histologically assessed vascular density for the carcinoma was 8.79 % in the whole mucosal layer. f The histologically assessed vascular density was 9.26 % in the superficial mucosal layer (0 – 100 μm). g Photomicrograph showing a CD34 immunostained tissue section from the surrounding uninvolved mucosa. h The histologically assessed vascular density was 2.75 % in the whole mucosal layer. I The histologically assessed vascular density was 2.18 % in the superficial mucosal layer (0 – 100 μm).