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Patients with primary gastric lymphoma often present with nonspecific symptoms. To identify common presenting symptoms, investigators retrospectively reviewed the records of 144 patients who were diagnosed with primary gastric lymphoma at five Italian hospitals between 1993 and 2004. Records were reviewed for both endoscopic findings and presenting symptoms. Anemia, bleeding or melena, weight loss, and persistent vomiting were considered alarm symptoms; dyspepsia, pain, bloating, and heartburn were not.
Seventy-four patients had low-grade lymphoma, and 70 had high-grade lymphoma. Alarm symptoms occurred more often in patients with high-grade lymphoma than in those with low-grade disease (54% vs. 28%, P=0.002). Compared with high-grade lympho…