Abstract

The concurrence of typical carcinoid admixed with adenocarcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract is a well known but unusual phenomenom that has been reported in the esophagus, stomach, gall bladder, colon and appendix. The amine precursor uptake and decarboxylation (APUD) concept included the idea that neuroendocrine cells of the gastrointestinal tract were dervied from the neural crest by a process of migration during embryogenesis. However the intimate admixture of cells which have morphologic and immunocytochemical properties of both carcinoid tumors and adenocarcinoma suggests that these tumors are derived from a multipotential stem cell showing bidirectional differentiation rather than from unrelated cell lines. The term composite carcinoma-carcinoid tumor is therefore an appropriate designation for these neoplasms. We report a case of composite carcinoma-carcinoid tumor of the stomach in a 38 year-old female with brief review of literature.