Abackground/AIMS: Gastric carcinoma is a frequent pathology in Colombia with recognized high endemic regions. The final outcome of patients affected with this disease tends to be very poor because they already have an advanced disease when the diagnosis is made. The Department state of Caldas is situated in the central part of Colombia, on the Andes mountains, a highly volcanic region and famous for the best coffee of the country. It is recognized from earlier studies as the fifth region with the highest world incidence of this pathology. In Colombia doesn't exist an early gastric cancer detection program in high risk zones; therefore, it is necessary to implement this type of health action with the objective of increasing survival, sincewhen gastric cancer is detected in an early stage and treated properly it can be considered a curable disease. Methodology: The Foundation for the Diagnosis of Gastric Carcinoma and Gastrointestinal Diseases conducteal between 1992 and 1997 a program for the detection of gastric cancer through endoscopic screening in a population of high endemic areas in Caldas, Colombia. Results: The results obtained in the study period (5 years) are promising, because we could detect 76 early and 550 advanced cancers, surpassing the previous expectatives because, as the historical hospital records all gastric cancers described were advanced with a 100% mortality at 10 years. Conclusions: We consider that this program has a great social impact and can be applied at to any type of high-risk population, increasing survival expectatives of the affected individuals.