RESUMO
The authors review the cases with smooth muscle tumors of the stomach (SMTS), excluding the leiomyomas, at the Mexico's General Hospital in a period of 5 years. They found 8 cases in women and 3 in men, with 51.3 years average. The average of evolution of symptoms was 5 months, prevailing: anaemia, digestive bleeding and abdominal pain. Barium radiology and endoscopy guided to the diagnosis. The tumors were located 7 at the fundus, 3 at the body and one at the gastric antrum. The size oscillated between 1.5-28 cm., average 8 cm. Endoscopic specimens were positive in 2/7 cases and cytologic samples were negative in all cases. Eight tumors were leiomyosarcomas (LMS) and 3 were leiomyoblastomas (LMB); the histologic criteria in order to differentiate them was based on the number of mitosis for 50 fields (50 csf), the size and their hypercellularity. A patient died before being operated. Two cases were subjected to emergency surgery, and died after that. In the cases treated with elective surgery the authors performed subtotal gastrectomy with major omentectomy in 4 and surgical resection of the tumor in the remaining 4 patients. The mortality rate for surgery was 27.2%.