In the present study, methylation of CDKN2A and APC was not very frequent in the non-neoplastic gastric mucosa, especially in intestinal metaplasia of patients with early GC and not predictive of the development of synchronous/metachronous GC, suggesting that those gene alterations may not be very critical in gastric carcinogenesis. The gene discussed is CDKN2A; the disease is gastric cancer.