Finding carcinoid tumor before bariatric surgery. Is preoperative endoscopy necessary? Case report

Carcinoid tumors are endocrine system-related lesions and 4% of the gastrointestinal tract's neuroendocrine tumors (NET) originate from stomach. In recent years, gastric carcinoid tumors have been reported at increasing rates on endoscopies. In this article, we will present a case of gastric carcinoid tumor detected at the upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy during preoperative bariatric surgery workup.

A 55 years old male patient with body mass index (BMI) 46 kg/m² was scheduled for bariatric surgery. Upper GI endoscopy revealed 2 separate 4-5 mm nodular lesions at gastric corpus and antrum. Biopsies were taken and both lesions were reported as neuroendocrine tumors. It was decided that the Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) operation would be performed because both lesion areas would remain in the extracted part of stomach.

The routine use of upper GI endoscopy in preoperative evaluation of bariatric surgery patients still remains controversial.

Upper GI endoscopy is very important in determining various gastric pathologies and determining the most appropriate surgical method before bariatric surgery.