# Vienna classification of gastrointestinal epithelial neoplasia

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/vienna-classification/  
OnCo record `vienna-classification` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The Vienna classification gives pathologists five shared categories for biopsies of early growths in the gullet, stomach and bowel, from no neoplasia to invasive cancer.

## Summary

Western and Japanese pathologists diagnosed the same gastrointestinal biopsies very differently: agreement was 37% for gastric, 45% for colorectal and 14% for oesophageal specimens. After 31 pathologists from 12 countries met in Vienna (Schlemper and colleagues, Gut 2000), agreement rose to 71%, 65% and 62% when the diagnoses were regrouped into five categories: 1 negative for neoplasia; 2 indefinite for neoplasia; 3 non-invasive low-grade neoplasia; 4 non-invasive high-grade neoplasia, including non-invasive carcinoma and suspected invasion; 5 invasive neoplasia, from intramucosal carcinoma to submucosal and beyond.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-11-04
- Also known as: Vienna classification

## Sources

- Schlemper et al., The Vienna classification of gastrointestinal epithelial neoplasia (Gut 2000): https://doi.org/10.1136/gut.47.2.251

## Connected records

- terms: [Barrett's oesophagus](https://onco.cc/terms/barretts-esophagus/), [JNET classification (colorectal tumours on narrow-band imaging)](https://onco.cc/terms/jnet-classification/), [Paris endoscopic classification of superficial neoplastic lesions](https://onco.cc/terms/paris-endoscopic-classification/), [Prague C and M criteria (Barrett's oesophagus)](https://onco.cc/terms/prague-c-and-m-criteria/)
- cancers: [Colorectal cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/colorectal/), [Gastric & gastro-oesophageal junction cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/gastric/), [Oesophageal cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/esophageal/)

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