[Smooth muscle tumors of the alimentary tract--a review of 397 cases].

397 cases of smooth muscle tumor of the alimentary tract were analysed. 385 were collected from the domestic literature in the recent 10 years and 12 are added by the authors. The tumor occurred more frequently in patients 40-60 years old. Diameter of the tumor ranged from 0.5-35 cm. The diameter of leiomyosarcoma was larger than that of leiomyoma on an average. The ratio of benign to malignant incidence was 3.2:1. Exclusive of 204 (51.4%) cases which occurred in the esophagus, the ratio was 1.1:1 in the other 193. In the 12 cases reported by the authors, it was 1:3. In the 193 cases of the GI tract, the lesion occurred in the stomach in 50.8%, in the small intestine in 29.0%, in the colon 1.0% and in the rectum 19.2%. The three most common clinical symptoms of those in the stomach and small intestine were abdominal mass (54.3%), bleeding (49.1%) and abdominal pain (45.7%). These 12 cases reported comprised 0.019% of 62, 088 patients admitted into our hospital, 0.09% of 12,678 tumor inpatients during the same period and 0.61% of 1,983 of malignant tumors in the alimentary tract. The preoperative diagnostic accuracy of this tumor was low, only 7.7% of all the GI neoplasms. On basis of the present data, improving the preoperative diagnostic accuracy is stressed.