You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Unusual presentation of more common disease/injury
Case report
Gastric metastases from primary breast cancers: rare causes of common gastrointestinal disorders
  1. Tiffany Yuen,
  2. Eddie Liu and
  3. Ali Kohansal
  1. Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Ali Kohansal; kohansal{at}ualberta.ca

Abstract

We report two cases of gastric metastases from primary breast cancers. In case 1, a 31-year-old woman with right-sided ductal breast carcinoma presented with nausea, vomiting and frank haematemesis, 8 months after mastectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy. An esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) revealed multiple ulcerated gastric lesions secondary to metastatic adenocarcinoma from primary breast tumour. In case 2, an 84-year-old woman with a history of left lobular carcinoma presented with early satiety, 17 years after initial mastectomy and adjuvant endocrine therapy. An EGD revealed unspecific gastric mucosa with thickened and erythematous folds and biopsies revealed adenocarcinoma from primary breast carcinoma. Our cases demonstrate how gastric metastases have variable, non-specific clinical and endoscopic presentations. Symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, early satiety and gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding. Endoscopic appearance may range from thickened gastric folds to ulcerating lesions. Our cases demonstrate that gastric metastases should be considered in patients with breast cancer history presenting with GI symptoms.

  • gastroenterology
  • GI bleeding
  • breast cancer

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2019-231763

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors TY wrote the manuscript. EL co-wrote, reviewed and edited the manuscript. AK provided endoscopy images, co-wrote, reviewed and edited the script and is the article corresponding author.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.