CASE REPORT article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Gastrointestinal Cancers: Gastric and Esophageal Cancers
Concomitant occurrence of primary gastric sarcomatoid carcinoma and giant gastrointestinal stromal tumor: A case report and literature review
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Oncology, The Affliated Dongnan Hospital of Xiamen University, Zhangzhou, China
- 2Department of Pathology, The Affliated Dongnan Hospital of Xiamen University, Zhangzhou, China
- 3Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Affliated Dongnan Hospital of Xiamen University, Zhangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Gastric sarcomatoid carcinoma (GSC) is a rare and aggressive malignancy, with only 16 cases reported in the English literature. Herein, we report an exceptionally rare case of synchronous primary GSC and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), a dual-tumor entity that has rarely been characterized in the existing literature. Case presentation: The patient was a 60-year-old man with GSC and GIST of the stomach who presented with dark stools and fatigue. Computed tomography (CT) imaging revealed gastric wall thickening and a large solid cystic mass adjacent to the gastric wall. Gastroscopic biopsy revealed a poorly differentiated carcinoma at the antrum-body junction. The patient underwent radical distal gastrectomy. Postoperative pathology indicated a sarcomatoid carcinoma (SC) of the greater curvature of the gastric body and an extraserous GIST. Postoperatively, adjuvant imatinib was administered. Two months later, multiple liver metastases were detected and confirmed by biopsy to be GSC metastases. Conclusions: This report describes a rare concomitant occurrence of GSC and GIST, with significant diagnostic challenges. In complex gastric tumors, vigilance for such a rare combination is essential, necessitating a thorough pathological evaluation for accurate diagnosis and individualized treatment. A misdiagnosis can lead to severe consequences.
Keywords: case report, diagnosis, gastric sarcomatoid carcinoma, Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor, Pathology
Received: 01 Dec 2025; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 DAI, Yang, Wen, Li, Chen, Wang, Zhang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Lan Zhang
Da-Chao Chen
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.