[Gastric carcinoid tumors]

Abstract

Gastric carcinoid tumors are divided up into three groups of various presentation and prognosis. Carcinoids tumors on fundic atrophic gastritis with achlorhydria resistant to pentagastrine stimulation, the most numerous, and those observed in patients with Zöllinger-Ellison syndrome, are fundic, readily small and numerous, of slow evolution with rare metastasis and without carcinoid syndrome. They are associated with an hypergastrinemia of antral or tumoral origin, responsible for a diffuse endocrin hyperplasia upon which they rest. The other carcinoid tumors, called sporadic, are usually unique and more voluminous, much more aggressive. They are accompanied by a carcinoid syndrome in one third of the cases. They occur without any hypergastrinemia and rest on a entirely normal gastric mucosa. The diagnosis of gastric carcinoid tumor imperatively requires an assessment intended to classify the tumors and to set up therapeutic indications.