The most common type of stomach cancer is gastric adenocarcinoma, or cancer of the glandular tissue in the stomach. Rare forms of stomach cancer include:
- Lymphomas -- cancers involving the lymphatic system (see Lymphoma)
- Sarcomas -- cancers of the connective tissue, such as muscle, fat, or blood vessels.
Stomach cancer can also affect nearby organs and lymph nodes. For example:
- A stomach tumor can grow through the stomach's outer layer into nearby organs, such as the pancreas, esophagus, or intestine
- Stomach cancer cells can spread through the blood to the liver, lungs, and other organs
- Stomach cancer cells also can spread through the lymphatic system to lymph nodes all over the body.
When stomach cancer spreads from its site of origin to another part of the body, the new tumor will have the same kind of abnormal cells and the same name as the original tumor. For example, if stomach cancer spreads to the liver, the cancer cells in the liver are actually stomach cancer cells -- not
liver cancer cells. Therefore, it will be treated as stomach cancer. Doctors may call the new tumor "distant" or metastatic disease.
For the remainder of this article, the term "stomach cancer" will be used to refer to gastric adenocarcinoma.
Previous
Add this article to your Favorites
Email this article
Print