Abstract
An 81-year-old man was admitted to our hospital for further examination of anemia with generalized fatigue. An abdominal CT revealed a mass adjacent to the small intestine measuring 40 mm in diameter. A small bowel series revealed an elevated lesion and extra-luminal compression of the near intestine around the tumor, giving the appearance of a submucosal tumor. We preoperatively diagnosed it as a GIST of the small intestine invading the mesentery and performed laparoscopy-assisted partial resection of the small intestine. At the time of the operation, another tumor in the small intestine was newly detected by palpation and the mass noticed on CT was located in its near mesentery. Based on histopathological examination, the tumors were finally diagnosed as a small intestinal carcinoid tumor with a lymph node metastasis.
Previous reports have shown that small intestinal carcinoid tumor can be frequently accompanied by lymph node metastasis. However, radical resection with regional lymph node dissection yields a fairly good prognosis. We think that radical resection should be considered for small intestinal carcinoid tumors without distant metastasis, like our case.
