A Disappearing Tumour Of The Stomach

Abstract

A large solitary gastric polyp was experienced in a 43-year-old woman, measuring 3.8 x 2.8 x 2.5 centimeters with a stalk 2 centimeters located on the anterior wall of the cardiac area. Strangely enough, the polyp could not be found at the third x-ray examination done 4 months later; the polyp disappeared spontaneously except stalk. This case has two interesting points; the one is the site of the polyp and the other is its spontaneous disappearance. A polyp in the cardiac region is of rare occurrence; mostly it is located in the prepyloric antrum or in the body. Considered as a precancerous disease, gastric polyp is surgically resected usually whenever it is found. Lately there are some reports that solitary gastric polyp seldom changes to cancer, but long term follow-up of gastric polyp without operation is as yet insufficient. In Japanese literature, there is only one report of a solitary gastric polyp located in the prepyloric antrum, the head of which had spontaneously fallen off and disappeared. It is scarcely possible for a polyp in the cardiac area to fall off from the gastric wall because of no peristaltic movement in that area as compared with one in the prepyloric antrum. The cause of disappearance of this polyp is therefore obscure. The patient is said to have caught cold at about two months before the third x-ray examination, complaining of severe cough. Ten days later she had an attack of abdominal colic pain with dizziness. It was considered that circulation within the polyp might have been disturbed by severe cough, and fell off later as a result of necrosis caused by the cough.