Endoscopic manifestations and treatment outcomes of asymptomatic gastric metastases from primary lung adenocarcinoma: Report of two cases

Abstract

Metastatic spread of lung adenocarcinoma to the stomach is rare and most gastric metastases are discovered at the advanced stage due to certain symptoms. The present study reported two cases of asymptomatic gastric metas‑ tases from lung adenocarcinoma presenting as diminutive nodules or erosion endoscopically. The manifestations were also visualized under magnifying endoscopy with blue laser imaging (BLI‑ME), the two cases share certain common characteristics under BLI‑ME, such as an obviously widened intervening part and extended subepithelial capillary network, which indicated that lesions developed beneath the superficial epithelium. Target biopsy and further immunohistochemical staining confirmed that the gastric lesions were metastatic from primary lung cancer. None of the two patients were candidates for surgery due to multiple distant metastases, but the gastric metastases regressed to scars after systemic anticancer therapy. These two cases were presented in order to improve the current understanding of the endoscopic mani‑ festations of early gastric metastases from lung cancer, and the outcomes may demonstrate that systemic treatment is effective for eliminating early gastric metastatic lesions.