leather bottle stomach
Last reviewed 11/2020
A leather bottle stomach - linitis plastica - describes a stomach that has a gastric carcinoma which is morphologically an infiltrating carcinoma.
Infiltrating carcinomas of the stomach tend to occur in younger patients and carry a poorer prognosis than other morphological types.
Infiltrating carcinomas cause a leather bottle stomach as a result of spreading widely beneath the stomach mucosa and invading the muscular wall. This pattern of 'growth' causes thickening and stiffening of the stomach wall. As a result the stomach also has a reduced capacity. The resultant stiff-walled, smaller capacity stomach is much akin to a leather bottle.