Adenocarcinoma arising from a foregut cyst of the diaphragm: importance of multimodality treatment: a case report

Background Benign foregut cysts usually develop in the thorax most of all in the mediastinum. Rare cases involving various abdominal organs, such as liver, stomach or pancreas have been previously published, mostly occurring in the retroperitoneum. Case presentation We herein present an adenocarcinoma of a foregut cyst involving the left side of the diaphragm, left lower lobe of the lung, and left lobe of the liver, successfully removed through multivisceral resection. In between drug holidays, postoperative oncological treatment has been ongoing for nearly 4 years. In terms of chemotherapy, FOLFOX 4 regime, capacitabine monotherapy and later on next generation sequencing has been attempted, although the patient refused the later treatment option. Despite multimodality (combined surgical and oncological) treatment, local- and later on loco-regional recurrence has been detected on follow-up staging, influencing further chemotherapy regime. Taking both the fairly unknown type of the tumor and uncertain response rate to oncological therapy into account, prolonged tumor pace with fairly stable general patient state was reached throughout the course of the disease. Conclusion Through surgical tumor resection, and postoperative chemotherapy the patient managed to maintain an acceptable quality of life without major symptoms during ongoing treatment. During our own case, with multiple organ involvement, multivisceral resection, with multimodality treatment had considerable effect in prolonging the lifespan of the patient.