Carcinoids of the gastrointestinal tract

Thirteen cases of carcinoid of the GI tract during eleven years seen in our hospital are presented. Prior to surgery, the clinical diagnosis of our 9 cases of gastric carcinoid was as follows: 7 cases were diagnosed as advanced gastric cancer, one case as perforated gastric ulcer, while a minute lesion of less than 1 cm in diameter was correctly diagnosed as a carcinoid. The tumors were all larger than 2 cm in the largest diameter with the exception of a minute lesion that appeared as a submucosal tumor and was diagnosed correctly before operation. Only one case of rectal carcinoid was diagnosed as a carcinoid endoscopically. The other two were diagnosed as rectal polyp and rectal cancer respectively. The lesion arising in the cecum was diagnosed as cecum tumor. The biopsy specimens of most carcinoids revealed adenocarcinoma pre-operatively, and only two cases were diagnosed correctly as carcinoid. In our series, we were unable to detect any symptom or sign of carcinoid syndrome, even in the case with widespread liver metastasis. We have not encountered any case of carcinoid in the appendix, which lesion has been very frequently reported in the Western countries.