Case Report: Patient with 3 Gastric Cancers Simultaneously (Adenocarcionma, NET, GIST)

Background: Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world second only to heart disease. The top three cancers by incidence for men are Lung, Prostate, and Colorectal. For women, the top three cancers by incidence are Breast, Colorectal, and Lung. Although gastric cancer does not crack the top three for men or women by incidence, gastric cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death worldwide. Of the different types of gastric cancer, adenocarcinoma of the stomach comprises nearly 95% of all forms of gastric cancer. The other less common types of gastric cancer include primary gastric lymphoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), and neuroendocrine (carcinoid) tumors. Diagnosis of the specific type of gastric cancer comes from the analysis of the removed specimen under the microscope. Multiple gastric cancers in a single patient are extremely rare and few cases have been reported. We report a case of a patient with three distinct types of gastric cancer in one pathology specimen. Case Information: The patient is a 77-year-old female who underwent total gastrectomy and distal esophagectomy in 2011 for concerning imaging and EGD studies consistent with cancerous lesions in her stomach. Upon examination under the microscope, the pathology report revealed three distinct cancers: 1) Mucinous adenocarcinoma 2) Well-differentiated neuroendocrine and 3) Gastrointestinal stromal tumor. After surgery, this patient underwent adjuvant chemoradiation and has been in remission and cancer-free going on 10 years. Conclusions: We present an extremely rare and peculiar case of a 77-year-old female who is 10 years post-op total gastrectomy and distal esophagectomy revealing three separate, coexisting, gastric cancers. Coexisting gastric cancers are very uncommon; however, physicians shouldn't rule out the possibility of their patients' having more than one type of cancer in the pathology specimen report. Understanding the different types of gastric cancer can alter therapy and change the plan moving forward (post-op) to recheck scans for lesions elsewhere in the body and undergo genetic testing for inherited mutations.