Palliation of obstructing gastric carcinoma with metal stents through a gastrostomy

Gastric cancer is the world's second most common malignancy. In the U.S., patients present with advanced disease, and surgery with curative intent accounts for only 30% of gastric malignancies. Palliative surgery has significant morbidity and mortality. Recently, there have been encouraging reports of self-expanding endoprostheses in obstructing gastrointestinal neoplasms. We report a case of a 70-yr-old woman with inoperable outlet stenosis secondary to a mucinous infiltrating adenocarcinoma involving nearly the entire stomach, except the anterior wall, which provided a percutaneous access site for gastrostomy and subsequently successful management of outlet obstruction with metallic stents.