What is small bowel cancer?

Also called small intestine cancers or adenocarcinomas, small bowel cancers are cancers that appear in the small intestine.

Who gets small bowel cancer?

Risk factors for small bowel cancer include:

Age. Most people who develop small bowel cancer are in their 60s and 70s.

Race. African American people are more likely to get small bowel cancer than people of other races.

Diet. Some research suggests that a diet high in red meat and salted or smoked foods may increase the risk of small bowel cancer.

Smoking. Smoking may increase your risk of developing small bowel cancer.

Celiac or Crohn’s disease. Both of these diseases affect the gastrointestinal tract. Having a personal history of celiac disease or Crohn’s disease may increase your chances of developing small bowel cancer.

Colon cancer. If you have had colon cancer, you are more likely to also develop cancer of the small intestine.

Inherited syndromes. People with the following inherited syndromes have a higher risk of small bowel cancer: familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), Lynch syndrome, Peutz-Jeghers syndrome (PJS), MUTYH-associated polyposis, or cystic fibrosis.

Symptoms of small bowel cancer

Symptoms of small bowel cancer include:

• Abdominal pain
• Fatigue
• Nausea or vomiting
• Jaundice (yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes)
• Unintended weight loss
• Blood in the stool
• Diarrhea
• Skin flushing

Surgical treatment of small bowel cancer

Small bowel cancer surgery will be one of two procedures:

• Segmental resection. During a segmental resection, your surgeon removes the segment of intestine where the tumor is located along with some normal tissue on either side. The two ends of the intestine are re-attached together. Your surgeon will also remove some tissue containing lymph nodes during the surgery. Segmental resection may be done as an open abdominal surgery or it may be done minimally invasively (laparoscopically), using special tools inserted through very small incisions. If the tumor is located at the very lower end of the small intestine, your surgeon may also need to remove part of the large intestine (colon). This is called a hemicolectomy. 
• Pancreaticoduodenectomy (Whipple procedure). This procedure is used to treat small bowel cancers located in the first part of the small intestine (duodenum). It is also used for cancer of the pancreas. During this extensive surgery, your surgeon will remove the duodenum, part of the pancreas, part of the stomach, and some lymph nodes.

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