Symptoms of zollinger-ellison syndrome

The disorder where tumors develop in the pancreas or in the small intestine is called Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. The problem is that these grown masses of tissue produce acid in your belly thus causing ulcers. This condition is uncommon with prevalence under one percent, and it can appear in any time of the life, though it mostly affects people in their 50s. The condition is treatable with the help of medications, but sometimes an operation is needed as well. The symptoms of this condition can be the same as the symptoms of peptic ulcer. The most common signs are irritation in the area of upper belly, frequent and watery bowel movement, pyrosis, feeling of sickness, throwing up, lack of strength and bleeding in alimentary canal. If you have any of these symptoms, particularly chronic pain in your belly with episodes of throwing up and sickness, immediately call your medical adviser. You shouldn’t take medicines that can be bought without prescription to ease the acid in your stomach without informing your doctor about it.

We don’t actually know what causes Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. The whole problem initially starts when tumor develops in specific parts of the body. Pancreas is an organ that secrets hormones for digesting food, but besides that, it secrets other hormones which are responsible for the production of stomach acid. In the small intestine, each of these enzymes are mixed. The tumors related to this syndrome make more acid to be present in the stomach, and they can also be malignant and affect other organs in the body. There is a big confusion between this condition and multiple endocrine neoplasia, type 1. They are similar but not the same, so they must be differentiated, in order to treat the right condition.

Surgery as the method of the treatment of this condition is very complicated, because the tumors are hard to find and they are very small. Operation is possible in those who have only one tumor, or one tumor that is big. There is another way to treat this condition and that is to take out liver tumor as much as they can, while the third way is liver transplantation. There is also a way to stop the blood from flowing to tumors, and in that way eliminate them. We can even put medication directly in to the tumor and use chemotherapy. The increased acid in the stomach can be put under control by medications, which are easy to find, and there is various medicines made for this purpose.