Currently in Japan, differentiated-type gastric submucosal invasive cancers <500 μm with negative lymphovascular involvement are included in expanded pathological criteria for curative endoscopic treatment. This categorization is based on a retrospective examination of surgical resection cases in which patients suitable for such expanded criteria were determined to have a negligible risk of lymph node metastasis. We performed endoscopic submucosal dissection on a 66-year-old man with early gastric cancer in June 2004, and pathology revealed a well-differentiated adenocarcinoma, 16 × 8 mm in size, minute submucosal invasion depth (100 μm), and negative lymphovascular invasion or ulceration as well as tumor-free margins, so the case was diagnosed as a curative resection. In this case, however, local recurrence and distant metastasis resulted in August 2011. The patient received systemic chemotherapy but died of gastric cancer 23 months after recurrence.