Choroid plexus metastases from pleural sarcomatoid mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Choroid plexus metastases from pleural sarcomatoid mesothelioma, by A. Muljono, T. Ng, J. McMaster, et al (Pathology, 2008).

The study

• Authors: A. Muljono, T. Ng, J. McMaster, M. Dexter
• Journal: Pathology
• Published: 2008;40(5):530-2
• Type of article: Case report, Letter
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article is a case report published as a letter. The authors described a 67-year-old man who had two months of dizziness, worsening headache and loss of the left side of the field of vision (left-sided hemianopia). An MRI scan showed a 4 cm mass inside the right lateral ventricle of the brain, with swelling around it. He had surgery through the skull (a craniotomy), and pieces of tumour tissue were examined. Under the microscope the tumour was made of spindle-shaped to many-sided cells. A panel of laboratory stains gave a pattern that the authors judged to support sarcomatoid mesothelioma. No normal brain tissue, including choroid plexus, was seen in the sample. Three months earlier the patient had a right pleural biopsy diagnosed as sarcomatoid mesothelioma, which looked similar. The patient died 3 months after the choroid plexus metastasis. The authors reported that a literature search found no earlier reports of mesothelioma spreading to the choroid plexus. They concluded that the pleural history and its resemblance to the brain mass contributed most to the diagnosis. The article does not mention asbestos exposure.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: case report (letter to the editor)
• Who was studied: One 67-year-old man treated by the anatomical pathology and neurosurgery departments of Westmead Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; no dates given
• Exposure: Not reported; the article gives no asbestos or other exposure history for the patient
• Main results:
  • In the patient, MRI showed a 4 cm mass within the right lateral ventricle
  • The patient's tumour cells were positive for vimentin, AE1/AE3 and CD10, and focally positive for CAM5.2, calretinin, thrombomodulin, HBME-1, S-100 and smooth muscle actin
  • The tumour stained negative for CK5/6, EMA, Ber-EP4, CEA, desmin, bcl-2 and CD34
  • No normal brain tissue, including choroid plexus, was identified in the surgical specimen
  • The patient had a right pleural biopsy 3 months before, diagnosed as sarcomatoid mesothelioma, with an appearance and staining pattern similar to the brain mass
  • The patient died 3 months after the choroid plexus metastasis
  • The authors' literature search found no reports of mesothelioma metastatic to the choroid plexus
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that their immunohistochemistry panel supported the diagnosis of sarcomatoid mesothelioma. They considered the history of pleural sarcomatoid mesothelioma, and its resemblance to the brain mass, the most contributory factor in making the diagnosis.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Sarcomatoid, Mesothelioma.

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