[Gastric glomus tumors expressing synaptophysin: clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical analyses]

Objective: To investigate the clincopathologic and immunohistochemical features of gastric glomus tumors and their differences from gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms. Methods: Six cases of gastric glomus tumors, 8 cases of glomus tumors in other sites and 7 cases of gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms were collected from the Department of Pathology, Taizhou Hospital. The clinicopathological and immunohistochemical characteristics of these tumors were analyzed retrospectively. Results: The gastric glomus tumors were located in the muscularis propria of the antrum and most cases strongly expressed synaptophysin (5/6). However, no synaptophysin expression was seen in glomus tumors of other organs.Most gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms were located in the mucosa or submucosa of the fundus and corpus. In addition to the strong expression of synaptophysin (7/7), CgA (6/7) and CD56(5/7) were strongly positive, although SMA was negative. Conclusions: Gastric glomus tumors and neuroendocrine neoplasms have similar morphological characteristics and both show strongly expression of synaptophysin. However, the location and immunohistochemical characteristics of gastric glomus tumors differ from those of the neuroendocrine neoplasms.