Stomach Cancer

The stomach cancer known also as gastric cancer is a disease in which cancerous cells are found in the stomach tissue. The stomach is a "J" shaped organ which is placed in the superior part of the abdomen where food is rotted (digestion). The food reaches the stomach through a tube called esophagus that connects the mouth with the digestion organ. Before going past the stomach, the partially digested food goes past the small intestine and then through the large intestine or colon. Sometimes, the cancer may stay in the stomach during a log time and grow considerably until it causes any symptom.

    The global incidence of gastric neoplasm is rather low in dogs and even lower in cats. The more frequent malignant gastric tumor (stomach cancer) found in dogs are: adenocarcinoma (it is the one of most prevalence), leiomyosarcoma and fibrosarcoma while the most frequent in cats is the lymphosarcoma (normally in cats which are negative FeLV).

    The associated symtomatology caused by the different types of tumors are the following: gastric motility disorder and pyloric outlet obstruction that can provoke foamy chronic vomits with or without blood, chronic diarrhea, abdominal effusion, abdominal pain, depression, weight loss and anorexia. But in many cases the signs that are seen are just asymptomatic.

    Almost always, it is a great challenge to reach an early diagnosis with those signs. If there are symptoms, the veterinarian usually orders radiography of the gastrointestinal region. In order to do this exam, the dog or cat is given a liquid to drink which contains Barium. With this liquid it is possible to observe the stomach with higher definition in the radiography. The veterinarian can also observe inside the stomach with a thin tube, which has a light, called gastroscope. This procedure, known as gastroscopy, detects most of the stomach cancers. In order to do this exam, the vet must place the patient under anesthetic.

    The endoscopy or gastroscopy is rather important so as to establish a diagnosis. If the endoscopy shows abnormal tissue, it would be advisable to extract a small piece to watch it in the microscope in order to determine whether there are cancerous cells or not. This procedure is known as biopsy.

    The blood analysis helps to determine paraneoplasic signs and hematological abnormalities (such as anemia, increased phosphatase, neutrophilia, etc).

    The recover possibilities (prognosis) and the treatment selection depend in the disease stage. However, in the veterinarian science is a serious condition because most of the cases, when the oncological diagnosis is reached, it is too late to procedure with the surgical intervention and obtain a good tumor exeresis.

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