Synchronous Occurrence of Advanced Gastric Carcinoma with Retroperitoneal Liposarcoma: A Case Report

BACKGROUND Gastric carcinoma (GC) remains one of the most common and deadly neoplasms in the world. Liposarcoma (LPS) is the most common sarcoma of adults. However, synchronous or metachronous occurrence of GC with LPS seems to be very rare. Tumor staging and differential diagnosis with these cases are extremely difficult. CASE REPORT The patient was a man in his 70s, who reported anorexia and weight loss of 4 kg over 2 months. Gastroscopy demonstrated a large tumor of Borrmann type 3, of which histology was moderately to poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. The clinical stage was initially defined as IVb due to a 11×6 cm retroperitoneal (RP) tumor. Despite chemotherapy for GC, the RP tumor rapidly enlarged. Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy showed that it was an undifferentiated sarcoma. He died of hepatorenal failure secondary to severe jaundice. The autopsy revealed a synchronous occurrence of GC and RP sarcoma. GC had no areas admixed with sarcoma. Histology of RP sarcoma showed that it mainly consisted of undifferentiated sarcoma and focally of well-differentiated LPS characterized by well-differentiated adipocytes admixed with scattered atypical stromal cells. The tumor cells in both areas were positive for MDM2 and CDK4 by immunohistochemistry. The diagnosis of the RP sarcoma was revised to dedifferentiated LPS. CONCLUSIONS There were no previous case reports of synchronous occurrence of GC with LPS in the English and Japanese literature. GC and LPS pose challenging problems in their diagnoses, staging, and treatments when they occur synchronously or metachronously.