Adenocarcinoma is a malignant stomach cancer which originates in the tissues of glands or from glandular structures. It has been estimated that about 90-95% of malignant cancerous tumours are adenocarcinomas. The term gastric cancer or stomach cancer most often refers to adenocarcinoma stomach cancer.
According to many experts, an infection with Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium, is the main cause of most of the stomach cancers. The Adenocarcinoma is likely to develop in case the polyps are larger than the size of 2 cm, or if many polyps exist.
This cancer grows from the cells forming the innermost coating of the stomach’s mucosa. This tumour spreads through the walls of the stomach and into the adjoining parts like pancreas and spleen. It spreads through blood stream and the lymph system to remote organs like metastasize.
The main symptoms of this type of cancer include difficulty in eating, inability to take in some of the minerals and vitamins, anaemia characterized by weakness, fatigue and light-headedness caused by gradual bleeding, mal-absorption of iron and vitamin B-12 due to shortage of acid in the stomach, vomiting blood, passing black and tarry stool, and in the advanced stage of adenocarcinoma, the doctor may even feel a lump of mass when he or she presses on the abdomen.
One of the most important factors that need to be considered in the staging of adenocarcinoma stomach cancer is that whether the tumour has invaded the surrounding tissues or not and how deep it has pierced through. If the invasion of the tumour is still limited, you can go through the process of prognosis.
Disease tissue which is limited to a small area improves the result of surgery performed to do away with the diseased region of the stomach. This process is called resection of stomach. In the early stages of adenocarcinoma stomach cancer, surgery can be exercised in order to remove the cancer. Surgery is the only treatment that is capable of completely treating the disease. |
