Only about ten percent of all small intestinal tumors of this etiology are the cause of carcinoid syndrome. For the doctor, this means that the process has become malignant and has spread to the liver. Such tumors can cause obstruction of the intestinal lumen and, as a result, intestinal obstruction. The patient is admitted to the hospital with cramping pain, nausea, vomiting and stool disorders. And the cause of this condition will only be found out on the operating table.

Obstruction can be caused either directly by the size of the tumor or by torsion of the intestine due to fibrosis and inflammation of its mucous membrane. Sometimes scars disrupt the blood supply to an area of the intestine, which leads to necrosis and peritonitis. Any of these conditions is life-threatening and can lead to the death of the patient.

Tumors of the appendix are a rare occurrence in themselves. Among them, carcinoids occupy an honorable first place, but practically do not cause carcinoid syndrome. Their signs are extremely scarce. As a rule, these are findings of pathologists after appendectomies. The tumor does not even reach one centimeter in size and behaves very “quietly”. The chances that after removal of the appendix the tumor will appear in some other place are negligible. But if the detected tumor was two centimeters or more in size, then one should be wary of metastasis to local lymph nodes and dissemination of tumor cells to other organs. In this case, a regular appendectomy will not cope with all the screenings, and oncologists will have to be involved to carry out complex treatment.

Another localization in which carcinoid syndrome is practically not expressed. There are no signs and tumors are accidentally found during diagnostic procedures such as colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy. The likelihood of malignancy (malignancy) and the appearance of distant metastases depends on the size of the tumor. If its diameter exceeds two centimeters, then the risk of complications is about eighty percent. If the neoplasm does not reach one centimeter in diameter, then you can be ninety-eight percent sure that there are no metastases.