Gastric cancer metastasis mimicking primary lung cancer - case report and review of the literature

Gastric cancer frequently presents intraperitoneal spread. Distant metastasis are rare. The authors describe a case of a 47-year-old white man, long-term cigarette smoker, who had a right upper lobe mass seen on plain films and computed tomography of the chest. A gastric adenocarcinoma was concomitantly diagnosed by endoscopic examination. A bronchoscopy guided biopsy showed that the lung mass was in fact a metastasis from gastric adenocarcinoma. In this article, the imaging findings of gastric cancer and the patterns of dissemination to other organs are reviewed. (author)