Neuroendocrine carcinomas of the stomach account for only about 0.3% of all gastric tumors. The prognosis of this disease is very poor compared with the common type of gastric adenocarcinoma. The purpose of this retrospective study was to review the clinicopathologic features of 18 cases of this unusual gastric tumor and to establish a treatment strategy for this tumor.

Excluding 2 cases of non-curative resection and 1 case of operative mortality, 18 cases of typical neuroendocrine carcinoma who had curative resection from January 1991 to December 2000 at Asan Medical Center were analyzed; 6841 gastric cancer patient were treated surgically during the same period.

The mean age at the time of diagnosis was 58.6 years (range: 35~75 yr). Sixteen patients were male, and two were female. Eleven tumors (61.1%) developed in the lower part of the stomach, three (16.7%) in the middle part, and three (16.7%) in the upper part. One tumor involved the entire stomach. Eight cases (44.4%) were Borrmann type 2, and six case (33.3%) were Borrmann type 3. The mean tumor size was 6.94 cm (range: 0.6~15 cm). Nine cases (50%) showed recurrence of the disease, and eight of them died within 20 months. Of the nine recurred cases, 7 cases (77.8%) showed liver metastasis. The mean disease-free interval was 6.8 months (range: 2.5~11 months) after surgical resection, and the mean survival was 17.9 months (range: 8~40 months) for recurrence cases. One patient with liver metastasis was treated with a liver-wedge resection just after diagnosis and was still alive for 37.5 months postoperatively. There were 9 deaths after the median follow-up period of 40 months (range: 8~72 months).

Gastric neuroendocrine carcinomas frequently recur at the liver, even in early stage cancer, and have a poor prognosis. We experienced a case of successful control of hepatic metastasis by surgical resection and a case of a small cell carcinoma which was successfully controlled with systemic chemotherapy.