Trousseau’s syndrome in a patient with advanced stage gastric cancer

Abstract

Patients with cancer are at high risk for thrombotic events, which are known collectively as Trousseau’s syndrome. Herein, we report a 66-year-old male patient who was diagnosed with terminal stage gastric cancer and liver metastasis and who had an initial clinical presentation of upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Acute ischemia of the left lower leg that resulted in gangrenous changes occurred during admission. Subsequent angiography of the left lower limb was then performed. This procedure revealed arterial thrombosis of the left common iliac artery with extension to the external iliac artery, the left common iliac artery, the posterior tibial artery, and the peroneal artery, which were occluded by thrombi. Aspiration of the thrombi demonstrated that these were not tumor thrombi. The interesting aspect of our case was that the disease it presented as arterial thrombotic events, which may correlate with gastric adenocarcinoma. In summary, we suggested that the unexplained thrombotic events might be one of the initial presentations of occult malignancy and that thromboprophylaxis should always be considered.

Keywords: Gastric cancer; Arterial thrombotic events; Trousseau’s syndrome; Thromboprophylaxis; Vascular thrombosis

Core tip: Patients with cancer are at high risk for thrombotic events, which are collectively known as Trousseau’s syndrome. This case report reviews arterial thrombotic events that occurred in a patient with gastric cancer. An unexplained thrombotic event might be one of the initial presentations of occult malignancy, and thus, thromboprophylaxis should always be considered.