Bleeding is a fairly typical complication in stomach cancer. The frequency of its manifestation in patients with this form of oncology varies from every twentieth to every fifth patient. Because this is a serious complication, consequently its development occurs in the late stages of an oncological disease, but it can also occur at the initial stage. The cause of bleeding is most often destructive processes in tumors associated with decay or ulceration. Most susceptible to this phenomenon are tumors that form in the antrum of the stomach and in his body. Cardiac formations bleed much less often. There are cases of damage to blood vessels affected by cancer, which also causes bleeding. The most dangerous place is the small curvature of the stomach where the left coronary artery passes. If this area is affected by cancer, the intensity of blood release from the tumor is highest.
The most obvious sign of gastric bleeding is almost always vomiting with a bloody dark brown color, which is due to the reaction of the blood to hydrochloric acid. Sometimes vomiting can be accompanied by a black viscous or shapeless stool. With a latent form, this complication of cancer can only be determined by performing an analysis of the stool for Gregersen's reaction, which helps to detect blood when it is not visible during routine analysis. As a result of bleeding in stomach cancer, there is usually a different degree of difficulty in the manifestation of anemia. Symptoms of this complication can be expressed vaguely with little loss of blood or absent altogether. If we are talking about a severe form with vomiting, tar stool, a significant decrease in the level of hemoglobin, the patient will feel a breakdown, dizziness. In addition, the skin and visible mucous membranes will have a pale shade, the patient may have a pulse and the blood pressure may drop. In a particularly serious condition, when there is profuse bleeding( profuse), the hemoglobin level drops very quickly, blood pressure can drop to 40, and the pulse speeds up to 140 beats per minute. The patient shows active signs of anemia, the skin takes a pale, lifeless color, the pupils are dilated, lips are marked blue, and loss of consciousness is possible. At the last stage, the pulse assumes a filiform character, which is caused by the weakening of the heart, the patient loses control over the processes of urination and defecation.
Bleeding also occurs with the formation of benign tumors in the stomach, but the frequency of this situation compared with cancer is not more than 1.5% of cases.
The danger of this symptom is that it is not always possible to stop bleeding by cauterization or by injection. In such a situation, surgical intervention should be performed immediately. Otherwise, the condition of the patient with stomach cancer will deteriorate rapidly until a critical weakening of the vital activity of the body.