[Gastrointerstinal stromal tumors of the stomach--case reports]

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors are the most common mesenchimal tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. Despite the enormous progress made in the field of diagnostics, most often diagnosis is made during the explorative laparotomy and postoperative immunohystochemical analysis of specimen. The surgical treatment is often indicated, although scarce preoperative diagnosis causes intraoperative dilemma concerning the level of radicality.

In this paper we have analyzed two patients with gastric GIST. The first patient was 59 years old male, with preoperatively diagnosed colonic cancer. Intraoperatively besides the transverse colon cancer, we found intramural gastric tumor. This patient underwent subtotal gastrectomy and subtotal colectomy. The immunohystochemical analysis of gastric tumor proves benign GIST. The second patient was 50 year old male presented with repeated upper GI bleeding. The endoscopic ultrasound showed intramural tumor of the anterior gastric wall, with a visible blood vessel bleeding during endoscopy. After the resuscitation, we performed subtotal gastrectomy. The immunohystochemical analysis proved malignant GIST.

In the cases with inadequate preoperative diagnoses, the level of resection procedure is based on the size of tumor and the presence of necrosis and bleeding inside the tumor. Tumors larger than 5 cm in diameter with signs of necrosis and bleeding are parameters of malignant nature of GIST, therefore demanding a radical surgical treatment.

The surgical resection is a treatment of choice for gastrointestinal stromal tumors. It has been shown that adequate surgical resection correlates with high 5-years survival rates for patients with gastric GIST.