Gastric Carcinoid Tumour as a Cause of Severe Upper Gastrointestinal Haemorrhage

A 27-year-old male patient was admitted to the emergency room with anemia and signs of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Gastroscopy and coloscopy showed no bleeding lesion. Further investigative procedures included abdominal ultrasound, showing a tumor-suspicious mass caudal the pancreas which could not be seperated from the small intestine in the following MRT. Suspecting a tumor of the small intestine an exploratory laparotomy was performed. By this a gastrointestinal stromal tumor of the jejunum was detected and therefore resected. GIST are rare mesenchymal tumors, occurring in the complete gastrointestinal tract. In 20-35 % GIST arise in the small intestine, manifesting in 40 % with bleeding. Surgical treatment of the primary cancer depends on the tumor-location. The demonstration of CD 117 not only enabled a new definition of this tumor entity, it also led to new therapeutic aspects.