symptoms of stomach cancer

Symptoms

Early stomach cancer often does not cause symptoms. As the cancer grows, the most common symptoms are:

• Discomfort or pain in the stomach area
• Difficulty swallowing
• Nausea and vomiting
• Weight loss
• Feeling full or bloated after a small meal
• Vomiting blood or having blood in the stool

Most often, these symptoms are not due to cancer. Other health problems, such as an ulcer or infection, can cause the same symptoms. Anyone who has these symptoms should tell their doctor so that problems can be diagnosed and treated as early as possible.

Diagnosis

If you have symptoms that suggest stomach cancer, your doctor will check to see whether they are due to cancer or to some other cause. Your doctor may refer you to a gastroenterologist, a doctor whose specialty is diagnosing and treating digestive problems.
Your doctor will ask about your personal and family health history. You may have blood or other lab tests. You also may have:

• Physical exam: Your doctor feels your abdomen for fluid, swelling, or other changes. Your doctor also will check for swollen lymph nodes.
• Endoscopy: Your doctor uses a thin, lighted tube (endoscope) to look into your stomach. Your doctor first numbs your throat with an anesthetic spray. You also may receive medicine to help you relax. The tube is passed through your mouth and esophagus to the stomach.
• Biopsy: An endoscope has a tool for removing tissue. Your doctor uses the endoscope to remove tissue from the stomach. A pathologist checks the tissue under a microscope for cancer cells. A biopsy is the only sure way to know if cancer cells are present.

You may want to ask your doctor these questions before having a biopsy:

• How will the biopsy be done?
• Will it hurt?
• Are there any risks? What are the chances of infection or bleeding after the biopsy?
• When can I resume my normal diet?
• How soon will I know the results?
  
  
• If I do have cancer, who will talk to me about next steps? When?

• Staging

  If the biopsy shows that you have stomach cancer, your doctor needs to learn the stage (extent) of the disease to help you choose the best treatment.
  Staging is a careful attempt to find out the following:
  
• How deeply the tumor invades the wall of the stomach
• Whether the stomach tumor has invaded nearby tissues
• Whether the cancer has spread and, if so, to what parts of the body.

When stomach cancer spreads, cancer cells may be found in nearby lymph nodes, the liver, the pancreas, esophagus, intestine, or other organs. Your doctor may order blood tests and other tests to check these areas:

• Chest x-ray: An x-ray of your chest can show whether cancer has spread to the lungs.
• CT scan: An x-ray machine linked to a computer takes a series of detailed pictures of your organs. You may receive an injection of dye. The dye makes abnormal areas easier to see. Tumors in your liver, pancreas, or elsewhere in the body can show up on a CT scan.
• Endoscopic ultrasound: Your doctor passes a thin, lighted tube (endoscope) down your throat. A probe at the end of the tube sends out sound waves that you cannot hear. The waves bounce off tissues in your stomach and other organs. A computer creates a picture from the echoes. The picture can show how deeply the cancer has invaded the wall of the stomach. Your doctor may use a needle to take tissue samples of lymph nodes.
• Laparoscopy: A surgeon makes small incisions (cuts) in your abdomen. The surgeon inserts a thin, lighted tube (laparoscope) into the abdomen. The surgeon may remove lymph nodes or take tissue samples for biopsy.

Sometimes staging is not complete until after surgery to remove the tumor and nearby lymph nodes.
When stomach cancer spreads from its original place to another part of the body, the new tumor has the same kind of abnormal cells and the same name as the primary (original) tumor. For example, if stomach cancer spreads to the liver, the cancer cells in the liver are actually stomach cancer cells. The disease is metastatic stomach cancer, not liver cancer. For that reason, it is treated as stomach cancer, not liver cancer. Doctors call the new tumor "distant" or metastatic disease.
These are the stages of stomach cancer:

• Stage 0: The tumor is found only in the inner layer of the stomach. Stage 0 is also called carcinoma in situ.
• Stage I is one of the following:
• The tumor has invaded only the submucosa. Cancer cells may be found in up to 6 lymph nodes.
• Or, the tumor has invaded the muscle layer or subserosa. Cancer cells have not spread to lymph nodes or other organs.
• Stage II is one of the following:
• The tumor has invaded only the submucosa. Cancer cells have spread to 7 to 15 lymph nodes.
• Or, the tumor has invaded the muscle layer or subserosa. Cancer cells have spread to 1 to 6 lymph nodes.
• Or, the tumor has penetrated the outer layer of the stomach. Cancer cells have not spread to lymph nodes or other organs.
• Stage III is one of the following:
• The tumor has invaded the muscle layer or subserosa. Cancer cells have spread to 7 to 15 lymph nodes.
• Or, the tumor has penetrated the outer layer. Cancer cells have spread to 1 to 15 lymph nodes.
• Or, the tumor has invaded nearby organs, such as the liver, colon, or spleen. Cancer cells have not spread to lymph nodes or to distant organs.
• Stage IV is one of the following:
• Cancer cells have spread to more than 15 lymph nodes.
• Or, the tumor has invaded nearby organs and at least 1 lymph node.
• Or, cancer cells have spread to distant organs.