Gastric carcinoid in a young woman with systemic lupus erythematosus and atrophic autoimmune gastritis.

Background: Gastric carcinoid is a rare tumour that is associated with chronic atrophic gastritis in the majority of cases. It usually occurs in the 6th or 7th decade of life and is rarely diagnosed in patients under 30 years of age.
Methods: We describe a case of multiple gastric carcinoids in a 23-year-old woman with systemic lupus erythematosus and atrophic autoimmune gastritis--an association that has not been reported previously.
Results: The combination of atrophic autoimmune gastritis and gastric carcinoid with other autoimmune disorders has rarely been reported in the English medical literature.
Conclusion: The fact that it mostly concerns (relatively) young patients may suggest a potential causative relation between those autoimmune disorders and the early development of atrophic gastritis with hypergastrinaemia, which subsequently leads to the occurrence of gastric carcinoid tumours at a young age.