CARCINOMATOUS DEGENERATION OF POLYP OF THE STOMACH

Abstract

Polyp of the stomach is of clinical importance chiefly because of its tendency to undergo malignant degeneration; it is important also because of its tendency, whether benign or malignant, to give rise to hemorrhage and to pyloric obstruction. In a group of eight cases of carcinomatous gastric polyp that we have observed during the past ten years, three patients had experienced gastric hemorrhage of such a degree as to lead to a preliminary diagnosis of primary anemia, and all but one had developed pyloric stenosis. These three phenomena—malignancy, hemorrhage and obstruction—may be looked on as the important consequences of gastric polyp, but it is to carcinomatous transformation particularly that we wish to direct attention at this time. Under the heading of benign polyp of the stomach is included, strictly speaking, all the nonmalignant intragastric pedunculated tumors; but, since the myoma, the fibroma, the angioma, the lipoma and the myxoma are