Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Mar 15, 2017; 9(3): 129-134
Published online Mar 15, 2017. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v9.i3.129
Lung cancer metastasis to the gastrointestinal system: An enigmatic occurrence
Kanthi Rekha Badipatla, Niharika Yadavalli, Trupti Vakde, Masooma Niazi, Harish K Patel
Kanthi Rekha Badipatla, Harish K Patel, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, Affiliated to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Bronx, NY 10457, United States
Niharika Yadavalli, Department of Medicine, Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, Affiliated to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Bronx, NY 10457, United States
Trupti Vakde, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Department of Medicine, Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, Affiliated to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Bronx, NY 10457, United States
Masooma Niazi, Department of Pathology, Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, Affiliated to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Bronx, NY 10457, United States
Author contributions: Badipatla KR designed the case report and wrote the discussion; Yadavalli N wrote the case presentation; Niazi M contributed to the pathology inputs and figures; Vakde T and Patel HK reviewed the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: Not required for case reports at our institution.
Informed consent statement: Patient is deceased and verbal consent obtained at the time of hospitalization.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors involved in the publication have no conflict of interests to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Kanthi Rekha Badipatla, MD, Gastroenterology Fellow, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, Affiliated to Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 1650 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10457, Unites States. kanthirb@gmail.com
Telephone: +1-718-7155553 Fax: +1-718-5185111
Received: November 14, 2016
Peer-review started: November 14, 2016
First decision: December 13, 2016
Revised: December 29, 2016
Accepted: February 8, 2017
Article in press: February 9, 2017
Published online: March 15, 2017
Processing time: 115 Days and 12.8 Hours
Abstract

Adenocarcinoma of the lung infrequently metastasizes to the gastrointestinal tract. We report a rare case of a 65-year-old male with no respiratory symptoms diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the lung by histopathological examination of metastatic sites which included an ulcer in the gastric body and a mass in the rectum. Metastatic disease also involved the liver as well. Patient was treated with systemic chemotherapy but unfortunately expired five months after the diagnosis was made.

Keywords: Lung cancer; Gastrointestinal metastasis

Core tip: It is an extremely uncommon finding to discover lung cancer on gastric ulcer and rectal mass biopsy. Also, this patient did not have a pre-existing cancer diagnosis. Computerized tomography did reveal liver lesions as well. With increasing use of endoscopy and colonoscopy in the current era, physicians should be mindful of the uncommon differentials as well.