Dealing with the gray zones in the management of gastric cancer: The consensus statement of the Istanbul Group.

The geographical location and differences in tumor biology significantly change the management of gastric cancer. The prevalence of gastric cancer ranks fifth and sixth among men and women, respectively, in Turkey. The international guidelines from the Eastern and Western countries fail to manage a considerable amount of inconclusive issues in the management of gastric cancer. The uncertainties lead to significant heterogeneities in clinical practice, lack of homogeneous data collection, and subsequently, diverse outcomes. The physicians who are professionally involved in the management of gastric cancer at two institutions in Istanbul, Turkey, organized a consensus meeting to address current problems and plan feasible, logical, measurable, and collective solutions in their clinical practice for this challenging disease. The evidence-based data and current guidelines were reviewed. The gray zones in the management of gastric cancer were determined in the first session of this consensus meeting. The second session was constructed to discuss, vote, and ratify the ultimate decisions. The identification of the T stage, the esophagogastric area, imaging algorithm for proper staging and follow-up, timing and patient selection for neoadjuvant treatment, and management of advanced and metastatic disease have been accepted as the major issues in the management of gastric cancer. The recommendations are presented with the percentage of supporting votes in the results section with related data.

Colonic Malignant Melanoma: 18F-FDG PET/CT Findings

Primary malignant melanoma occurs most often in the skin and much less frequently in the choroid layer of the eyes, in the leptomeninges, oral cavity, nasal mucosa, pharynx, esophagus, bronchus, under the nail and vaginal or anorectal mucosa. Primary melanoma of the gastrointestinal tract has been confirmed for lesions occurring in the esophagus, stomach, small bowel, and anorectum through several published reports, as these are the areas where melanocytes normally exist. The occurrence of primary malignant melanoma in the colon is relatively rare, because melanocytes are embryologically absent in the large bowel. Herein we report a patient whose colonic malignant melanoma was diagnosed and disseminated metastatic lesions were revealed with 18F-FDG PET/CT scan. There were multiple nodular lesions showing increased 18F-FDG uptake in both lungs. There was a soft tissue lesion with slightly increased 18F-FDG uptake, which extended to the intraluminal region of the thoracic esophagus. Increased metabolic activity was detected in the asymmetric stomach wall thickening site and in a soft tissue lesion located on the gall bladder wall that was filling the lumen. Multiple hypodense/hyper-metabolic lesions were identified in the liver. Multiple hyper-metabolic polypoid soft tissue lesions were visualized in almost the entire colonic segments. Multiple hyper-metabolic peritoneal implants were noted in all abdominal quadrants. Increased 18F-FDG uptake was detected at the right surrenal gland soft tissue lesion. There was a hyper-metabolic soft tissue lesion on the posterior wall of the rectum. Hyper-metabolic lytic lesions were seen at the thoracal and lumbar vertebrae, left scapula, left iliac bone, sacrum and left femur. There was no evidence of 18F-FDG avid skin lesions in both attenuation corrected and non-corrected images.