International Journal of Inflammation, Cancer and Integrative Therapy
Open Access

Gastric Emphysema and Its Possible Causes: Diagnosis and Management.

Copyright: © 2019  . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

To read the full article Peer-reviewed Article PDF

Gastric Emphysema (GE) is not an isolated entity but is always a sign of an
underlying disease. It refers to the presence of air within the wall of the stomach.
The presence of air within the G-I tract wall can appear at any site, from esophagus to
the rectum. The stomach is the least frequent site of presentation, accounting
hardly for 9% of all cases reported. It is not life threatening and can be caused
by a variety of iatrogenic and non iatrogenic events. Gastric emphysema in the
context of gastric pneumatosis, including emphysematous gastritis as well, was
described for the first time more than one century ago by Fraenkel. Its pathogenesis
and etiology is not yet fully understood and still debated. Evidences from single case
reports and series have attempted to explain its pathogenesis focusing mainly on
mechanical, bacterial or mucosal damage theory. Many of the possible causes
described in episodic retrospective cases might overlap and increase the chances of
developing GE. We present the case of a 64-year-old woman with main diagnosis of
pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, that went through many clinical complications
leading finally to GE

Keywords