Gastric GIST or gastric schwannoma-A diagnostic dilemma in a young female.

INTRODUCTION: Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is the commonest mesenchymal tumor of GI tract and 60-70% of it seen in the stomach, whereas Gastric schwannoma is a benign, slow growing and one of the rare neoplasms of stomach. Age distribution, clinical, radiological features and gross appearance of both tumors are similar.

PRESENTATION OF CASE: We report a rare case of gastric schwannoma in a 20-year-old girl, who underwent subtotal gastrectomy with the suspicion of a GIST preoperatively but later confirmed to be gastric schwannoma postoperatively after immunohistochemical study.

DISCUSSION: Accordingly, the differential diagnosis for gastric submucosal mass should be gastric schwannoma. Furthermore, Gastric schwannoma is a benign neoplasm with excellent prognosis after surgical resection, whereas 10-30% of GIST has malignant behavior. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between gastric schwannoma and GIST so as to make an accurate diagnosis for optimally guide treatment options.

CONCLUSION: Due to the paucity of gastric schwannoma, the index of suspicion for this diagnosis is low. So it is important to include gastric schwannoma in the differential diagnosis when preoperative imaging studies reveal submucosal exophytic gastric mass and after resection of the tumor with a negative margin, it should be sent for immunohistochemical study for confirmation of diagnosis.