Diffuse malignant mesothelioma of the peritoneum

Our plain-English summary of Diffuse malignant mesothelioma of the peritoneum, by T.D. Giles, J.C. Henderson, G.H. Dominguez (Southern Medical Journal, 1967).

The study

• Authors: T.D. Giles, J.C. Henderson, G.H. Dominguez
• Journal: Southern Medical Journal
• Published: 1967;60(1):63-6
• Cited by: 8 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This article reported two patients with diffuse malignant mesothelioma of the peritoneum (the lining of the abdomen) seen at Charity Hospital of Louisiana in New Orleans. It does not mention asbestos or any exposure history. A 52-year-old man had shortness of breath, weakness, weight loss and a swelling abdomen. A 64-year-old woman had blood in her stools and abdominal pain and swelling. In both, attempts to draw fluid from the abdomen (paracentesis) found none, and both died in hospital. At autopsy, grey-white tumor nodules covered the abdominal lining. In the man they measured 0.8 to 2.0 cm and had not invaded any organs. In the woman they measured 0.1 to 10 cm, and the tumor had invaded through the bowel wall in two areas, in the jejunum and the sigmoid colon. Careful examination found no hidden cancer elsewhere. In both patients the immediate cause of death was pulmonary embolism. The authors classified both tumors as diffuse undifferentiated malignant mesotheliomas. They thought that, in retrospect, a correct diagnosis might have been made before death.

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 (2 cases)
• Who was studied: Two patients at Charity Hospital of Louisiana at New Orleans: a 52-year-old man and a 64-year-old woman. Both were examined at autopsy.
• Exposure: Not reported. The article does not mention asbestos, fiber type, occupation or any other exposure.
• Main results:
  • In both patients, attempts to obtain abdominal fluid by paracentesis at several sites found no fluid. For the woman this was 3 locations.
  • Case 1 (the man): at autopsy the tumor nodules measured 0.8 to 2.0 cm in diameter.
  • Case 1 (the man): no metastasis or invasion of organs was found.
  • Case 2 (the woman): the tumor masses measured from 0.1 to 10 cm in diameter.
  • Case 2 (the woman): there were 2 areas of invasion, in the jejunum and the sigmoid colon. No metastases were found.
  • Careful examination of both cases found no hidden carcinoma elsewhere that the tumor could have spread from.
  • In both patients pulmonary embolism was the immediate cause of death.
  • Case 1 (the man) had a diabetic glucose tolerance curve.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors classified both cases as diffuse undifferentiated malignant mesotheliomas. They thought that, in retrospect, a correct clinical diagnosis might have been made in both cases before death. They noted that, short of surgery (laparotomy), peritoneoscopy or needle biopsy of the peritoneum could be used to diagnose it.

Topics

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

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

Related studies

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• Diffuse mesothelioma of the peritoneum: correlation between histological and clinical parameters and survival in 73 patients — S. Liu, P. Staats, et al. (2014)
• Diffuse mesothelioma of the peritoneum: a pathological study of 64 tumours treated with cytoreductive therapy — M. Lee, H.R. Alexander, et al. (2013)
• Simultaneous occurrence of a rectal carcinoma and a diffuse well differentiated papillary mesothelioma of the peritoneum — G.R. Jatzko, J. Jester (1997)
• Primary epithelioid haemangioendothelioma of the peritoneum: an unusual mimic of diffuse malignant mesothelioma — R.L. Attanoos, N.S. Dallimore, et al. (1997)
• Is PAX2 a reliable marker in differentiating diffuse malignant mesotheliomas of peritoneum from serous carcinomas of müllerian origin? — F.F. Gao, A.M. Krasinskas, et al. (2012)

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