Abstract
Small bowel adenocarcinoma is a clinically and anatomically distinct gastrointestinal
cancer that lacks prospective data to support its optimal management. Patients with
inflammatory bowel disease and inherited conditions that cause gastrointestinal polyps
are at especially high risk. Due to a lack of effective surveillance programs resulting
in missed or delayed diagnoses only when symptoms develop, this disease is generally
discovered at an advanced stage. Surgical resection is the only treatment modality
with a chance of cure. Currently accepted treatment considerations are often generalized
from large bowel and pancreatic–biliary cancers, due to some anatomic and clinical
parallels. Additional research, however, is desperately needed to characterize the
unique molecular differences of this disease to better prognosticate patients and
establish rational clinical trials that would improve their outcomes.
Keywords
small bowel adenocarcinoma - small intestinal adenocarcinoma - small intestinal cancer
- small bowel malignancies - small bowel cancer
