Gastric cancer with repeated metastasis in the colonic lumen: a case report and multi-surgical experience

Poorly differentiated gastric adenocarcinoma is commonly associated with lymph node metastasis, peritoneal spread, and liver metastasis but rarely with intraintestinal metastasis. Most patients with metastatic gastric carcinoma are unable to undergo surgical treatment and have a poor prognosis. A 42-year-old man with hunger-related abdominal pain was diagnosed as having gastric cancer. After the first surgery (distal partial gastrectomy) and the second surgery (gastric stump carcinoma (GSC) resection), the patient suffered repeated multiple intracolonic metastases and underwent three additional resection operations. The patient survived for 154 months after the first operation. In patients with gastric carcinoma that metastasizes to the colonic lumen, radical resection, if possible, can extend survival. Once patients develop extensive extraintestinal metastasis, radical resection cannot be performed, and patients often exhibit a poor prognosis.

Cryptic Early Gastric Carcinoma in Gastric Stump: Challenges in Diagnostic Evaluation

Partial gastrectomy, performed for any indication, is a well-recognized risk factor for carcinoma developing in the gastric remnant (so-called “gastric stump carcinoma”). In symptomatic patients with gastro-enteric anastomosis, it is a common practice to endoscopically evaluate the patency and the status of the anastomosis and procure biopsy samples when endoscopic abnormalities are noted. We describe a case with Billroth I gastroduodenal anastomosis with oozing and friability at the anastomosis site which was biopsied. The biopsies showed invasive intestinal-type adenocarcinoma. Subsequent completion gastrectomy showed no grossly visible tumor and required extensive initial and additional sampling of the anastomosis and the surrounding stomach to locate a small focus of invasive adenocarcinoma limited to the mucosa (“early gastric carcinoma”). This case illustrates a known complication of partial gastrectomy and highlights challenges in diagnostic evaluation of early gastric carcinoma after gastrectomy.