Gastric metastasis from breast cancer

Introduction: Breast carcinoma is the most common malignancy in women and the main cause of tumor deaths. Despite early recognition by screening and improvement in treatment regimens, many patients will eventually develop metastases, either locoregional recurrences or distant metastases, most frequently in the skeleton, liver and lung. Metastases to the gastrointestinal tract are infrequent and not even mentioned in the major oncologic textbooks. Case presentation: We report a case of metastasis to the stomach from occult breast cancer. The diagnosis was established by computed tomography (CT), histologic and immunohistochemical analyses of biopsies of the stomach lesion. The patient was treated with pre-operative hormonal therapy, undergoes breast surgery and then treated with systemic chemotherapy. She is still alive 2 years after initial symptoms of dyspepsia. Conclusion: The differentiation between primary gastric cancer and a metastatic breast tumor to the stomach is important for planning of treatment and to spare the patient unnecessary gastric surgery.