Gastric carcinoid tumour. A clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical study of four cases.

Over the last decade a great increase in the frequency of Gastric Carcinoid Tumours has been detected being considered by some authors as the most frequent digestive carcinoid. These have been divided into three types: I) those associated with chronic atrophic gastritis; II) associated with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, and III) sporadic lesions. We present four cases of gastric carcinoid type I (3 women and 1 man) two of them associated with pernicious anemia and another two with iron deficiency anemia. Three patients were operated upon, and an endoscopy removal was carried out on the fourth patient. The clinical course has been favourable during the follow-up. Multiple lesions were detected in 3 patients, with tumours less than 2 cm in size, except for a 4.5 cm polyp, which invaded the submucous layer. This case presented carcinoid syndrome without evidence of liver metastasis. Argyrophilia. Chromogranin A and Neuronal Specific Enolase tintions were located in the tumor and in the hyperplastic endocrine cells of the mucous.