Secondary adenocarcinoma of the urinary bladder from a primary gastric cancer

Primary bladder tumor is a frequent urological malignancy, whereas the incidence of secondary bladder tumor from a distant organ is quite rare. Secondary bladder neoplasms represent no more than 3% of all malignant bladder tumors in surgical specimens, of which distant metastases from stomach account for about 4%. The signs of bladder neoplasm in a patient with malignancy elsewhere should alarm the clinician for a possible metastatic origin. We present a patient with primary adenocarcinoma of the stomach, who underwent total gastrectomy and received adjuvant chemotherapy, and was diagnosed with metastasis to the urinary bladder 15 months later. We review the epidemiology of secondary adenocarcinoma of the bladder, mechanisms of metastasis, associated common primaries with focus on gastric malignancies, radiological findings, and role of immunohistochemical staining.