Case Report of Very Late Gastric Cancer Recurrence

Abstract

Very late recurrence of gastric cancer is rare. Here, we report a dramatic recurrence of gastric cancer, with isolated skeletal metastasis and bone marrow carcinomatosis, 22 years after the patient’s initial presentation. Gastric cancer recurrence involving bone or bone marrow is also uncommon and associated with poor prognosis. Pathology from a bone marrow biopsy showed signet ring cell morphology. The patient in this case demonstrated a surprising response—lasting 11 months—to palliative chemotherapy with cisplatin and capecitabine. This case report and literature review describes the characteristics of late gastric cancer recurrence and an approach to the diagnosis and management of patients with bone metastasis or bone marrow carcinomatosis.