On November 7, Dr. Pham Cam Phuong, Director of the Center for Nuclear Medicine and Oncology, Bach Mai Hospital, said that the patient had no history of underlying diseases, no family history of cancer, and a biopsy of stomach cancer and early-stage left lung cancer with hepatitis.

The doctor prescribed radical surgery for cancer, however, the patient's health was relatively poor, thin, and old, so he had to have surgery for stomach cancer first and then lung cancer surgery, with a good prognosis.

Worldwide, the rate of patients with two types of cancer at the same time is not high, accounting for about 0.1% of cancer cases. Of which, the global incidence of malignant tumors of the small intestine is less than 1/100,000 people. Small intestine cancer (including duodenal cancer) accounts for 2% of all gastrointestinal cancers, according to data in the US. The main location of small intestine cancer is the ileum, but cancer is also found in the duodenum and jejunum.

According to the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer), multiple primary cancers are defined as more than one type of cancer, with different histological origins, occurring in the same patient regardless of time. The incidence of multiple primary cancers worldwide ranges from 2.4 to 17.2%.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in December 2023 found that people who lost weight abnormally had a significantly higher rate of cancer within 12 months than people who maintained a normal weight. People with upper gastrointestinal cancers, such as esophageal, stomach, liver, biliary tract or pancreatic cancers, were more likely to lose significant weight before being diagnosed. Researchers also found that people with breast, brain and melanoma cancers did not lose significant weight before.