Laparoscopic treatment of a gastric duplication cyst: report of a case

Gastric duplications are rare benign tumors that are mainly discovered in relatively young patients. Although laparoscopic surgery, a less invasive surgical procedure, should be used for this condition, its application in the treatment of this disease has not yet been reported. A 14-year-old girl visited our hospital with the chief complaint of repeated episodes of upper abdominal pain. Because diagnostic imaging revealed a cystic tumor in the dorsal stomach, laparoscopic surgery was performed. The cystoma was intraoperatively found to contiguous with the posterior wall of the gastric cardia and was thus diagnosed to be a gastric duplication. With the intraoperative aid of gastroscopy, we were able to remove the cystoma from the continuous gastric wall safely without causing either a perforation or any other injury to the stomach. Gastric duplication is a congenital disease, and thus the majority of such cases are diagnosed in childhood. A laparoscopic resection of a duplicated stomach is less invasive and esthetically superior to other methods, and therefore it is considered to be a useful therapeutic modality.