The morphological profile of small bowel tumors - our experience

The authors assessed the morphological profile of tumor masses belonging to the small bowel discovered in their daily practice.

31 tumor masses located in different segments of small intestine operated between 2002 and 2013 in the 1st Surgical Department, Emergency County Hospital of Craiova, Romania, were analyzed. The investigated parameters were: tumor location and number, tumor dimensions, gross assessment, tumor extension and histological assessment.

Tumor masses belonging to small intestine were rare. They usually expressed by their complications. In many cases, they were placed at the extremities of the small intestine. They were usually small but sometimes large and developing outwards intestinal wall. Commonly they had a fungating and ulcerated appearance. They were rather of mesenchymal origin than epithelial. However, some of them were inflammatory pseudotumors. Almost all neoplastic proliferations had a malignant phenotype, most often with regional extension.

Our series of tumors had a morphological profile somehow similar with the profile described in the literature but with some particularities: the polarization to the extremities of the intestinal segment, a significant number of large tumors, clinical expression through different complications, the balance inclined in favor of mesenchymal origin of tumors and the clear predominance of malignant aggressive phenotype.