[Endocrine neoplasm of the stomach. Study of thirteen cases]

A Thirteen patients with primary endocrine neoplasm of the stomach were studied for 20 years. Six patients were male and 7 female with an age range of 33 to 77, mean age 57 years. Nine cases corresponded to well differentiated carcinoids and four to neuroendocrine carcinomas. Of the former, three were sporadic and six were associated with atrophic gastritis. These two forms of neoplasm showed important differences: those associated with atrophic gastritis had hypergastrinemia, all of the multiple small tumors confined to the corpus and fundus were well differentiated carcinoids associated with intestinal metaplasia and G cell hyperplasia in antrum and ECL cell hyperplasia in corpus and fundus. Tumors were clinically benign, with an excellent prognosis. All patients are currently alive with no evidence of neoplasm. In only one of these cases, antiparietal cell antibodies were documented; in three of them, extensive intestinal metaplasia probably due to Helicobacter pylori infection was found. In contrast, sporadic carcinoids were large isolated tumors originating in the antrum or corpus. Two patients died as a consequence of the neoplasm; all of them were moderately differentiated and in none of the cases we found evidence of endocrine hyperplasia. All were positive for generic endocrine markers and were focally positive to some of the specific hormone markers. Al four neuroendocrine carcinomas had a clinical course similar to that of gastric adenocarcinomas and were poorly differentiated large tumors. We conclude that gastric carcinoids associated with atrophic gastritis have an excellent prognosis. On the other hand, neuroendocrine carcinomas have a very poor prognosis with fatal outcome of patients. Sporadic carcinoids have an intermediate prognosis.