Abstract
This paper describes a case of solitary splenic metastasis 2 years and 9 months after curative resection of an early gastric cancer, which was treated by splenectomy.
A 63-year-old man was seen at the hospital because of a fever and left abdominal pain. Ultrasonography, computed tomography and angiography, splenic abscess and splenic tumor revealed. Splenectomy was performed. No hepatic metastasis, lymph node metastasis or peritoneal dissemination was observed. The surgical specimen exhibited a tumor in a size of 5×4.5 cm in the splenic parenchyma, and histopathological findings proved the lesion to be well differentiated adenocarcinoma. The histopathological image closely resemmbled that of the early gastic cancer excised 2 years and 9 months before. It was diagnosed as metastasis of the gastric cancer into the spleen. Splenic metastasis can be seen at times in a state associated with multiple metastatic lesions in terminal cancers, but solitary splenic metastasis is rare. Particularly the splenic lesion metastasized from gastrointestinal cancer for which splenectomy was successfully performed is so rare that only 12 cases have been reported in Japan as far as we can review. Among the 12 cases no other case of splenic metastasis from an early cancer can not be seen.
