Gastric carcinoma presenting with extensive bone metastases and marrow infiltration causing extradural spinal...

Gastric carcinoma is the third most common gastrointestinal (GI) malignancy after colon and pancreatic carcinoma. A Japanese study showed that the incidence of bone metastases of gastric cancer was 13.4% among autopsies. It is very rare for the primary presentation of a gastric malignancy to be with bone metastases. This case report is of a 46-year-old female patient, who presented with a thoracic vertebral wedge fracture and was subsequently found to have widespread vertebral metastatic deposits with marrow infiltration. The infiltration and suppression of marrow function was complicated by an acute bleed into the extradural space causing spinal cord compression. This case demonstrates two important features. First, that gastric cancer, although far less common than breast, kidney, thyroid, prostate and bronchial cancer, is a cause of metastases to bone. Second, it highlights the complications of bone metastases, marrow suppression, leukoerythroblastic anaemia, spinal canal haematoma and cord compression. The case is illustrated by axial and sagittal MRI slices.