Life-threatening digestive haemorrhage from duodenal recurrence of gastric cancer.

Invasion of the duodenum by gastric carcinoma is not uncommon. The duodenal invasion by transpiloric infiltration through the submucosal layer or lymphatic spread frequently being microscopic and in minimal number of cases involving the mucosa, is generally asymptomatic and detected only in postmortem examinations. We report a case of life-threatening gastrointestinal bleeding from cancer recurrence at duodenal stump after subtotal gastrectomy for gastric carcinoma. In such cases it can be very hard to find the haemorrhagic source because of the difficulties encountered in endoscopic and radiological evaluation of the duodenal stump.