Stomach cancer history and symptoms
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Parminder Dhingra, M.D. [2]
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Overview
Symptoms of stomach cancer include abdominal pain, bloating, weight loss, hematemesis and melena.
Symptoms
Stomach cancer is often asymptomatic or causes only nonspecific symptoms in its early stages. By the time symptoms occur, the cancer has generally metastasized to other parts of the body, one of the main reasons for its poor prognosis.
Stomach cancer can cause the following signs and symptoms:
History
- Twenty-five percent of patients have a history of gastric ulcer.
Common symptoms
- Weight loss: due to insufficient caloric intake, early satiety, and dysphagia
- Loss of appetite and early satiety
Less common symptoms
- Abdominal pain or discomfort in the upper abdomen
- Nausea and vomiting: : may be due to the mass itself or gastric outlet obstruction from an advanced distal tumor
- Weakness and fatigue
- Hematemesis and melena: occult bleeding accompanied with iron deficiency anemia, overt bleeding is seen in less than 20% of cases.
- Persistent abdominal pain: it tends to be epigastricand mild
- Dysphagia in proximal masses