Malignant endocrine carcinoma of the stomach

Small cell carcinoma and small portions of poorly differentiated adenocarci noma of the stomach sometimes differentiate into secretory cells. We experi enced a pure endocrine carcinoma of the stomach. The patient, who had a gia nt mass in the greater curvature of the body of the stomach and regional ly mph node metastasis, underwent total gastrectomy. Immunohistologic staining of the resected specimens revealed that the tumor was an endocrine carcino ma. The tumor cell shape in the present case was polygonal or oval and the cell size was relatively large. The cell nucleus was coarse chromatic and n ucleoli were seen, whereas, the nucleus of small cell carcinoma often shows a fine chromatic pattern and nucleoli are not seen. On the basis of these findings, the present case was considered to be a pure endocrine carcinoma which was not classified as a small cell carcinoma.