Extrapulmonary small cell carcinoma mimicking malignant pleural mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Extrapulmonary small cell carcinoma mimicking malignant pleural mesothelioma, by K. Noguchi, N. Fujimoto, M. Asano, et al (Journal of Clinical Pathology, 2013).

The study

• Authors: K. Noguchi, N. Fujimoto, M. Asano, Y. Fuchimoto, K. Ono, S. Ozaki, K. Hotta, K. Kato, H. Toda, K. Taguchi, T. Kishimoto
• Journal: Journal of Clinical Pathology
• Published: 2013;66(5):450-1
• Type of article: Case report, Letter
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This case report from Okayama, Japan, describes one patient in whom malignant pleural mesothelioma was suspected but a different cancer was found after death. The patient was an 85-year-old man with a 65 pack-year smoking history who had been exposed to asbestos for 30 years in the iron production industry. He had also been treated for bladder cancer several times since 2006. Chest CT showed thickening of the right pleura that had grown over 6 months, with pleural plaques on both sides, but no mass in the lungs or other organs. A biopsy was planned, but the patient died of pneumonia in August 2011. Autopsy found tumours on the right chest wall and in both lungs, the liver, the pancreas and the prostate. Tissue tests diagnosed small cell carcinoma. A bladder specimen removed in 2006 also contained small cell carcinoma, and the final diagnosis was a recurrence of small cell carcinoma that began in the bladder. The authors concluded that mesothelioma is the most common tumour in patients with irregular pleural thickening, especially after asbestos exposure. They added that small cell carcinoma arising outside the lung should also be considered as a possible diagnosis.

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 (one patient)
• Who was studied: One 85-year-old man with a 65 pack-year smoking history, referred to the authors' hospital (Okayama, Japan) in June 2011; he had chronic hepatitis C and had undergone transurethral resection for urothelial bladder cancer five times since 2006
• Exposure: Occupational asbestos exposure in the iron production industry over 30 years; fiber type not stated
• Main results:
  • Chest CT showed neoplastic thickening of the right pleura that had grown over 6 months, and bilateral pleural plaques, but no mass-like lesion in other organs, including the lungs, and no enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes
  • The patient was scheduled for thoracoscopic pleural biopsy, but his condition worsened and he died of pneumonia in August 2011
  • Autopsy found multiple tumours on the right chest wall and in both lungs, liver, pancreas and prostate, which had not been seen on CT in July 2011
  • The tumour cells were positive for CD56 but negative for chromogranin, synaptophysin, thyroid transcription factor (TTF)-1 and calretinin, and the patient was diagnosed with small cell carcinoma (SCC)
  • Transitional cell carcinoma was found in the bladder at autopsy. An SCC component was found in the bladder specimen resected in 2006, and the final diagnosis was recurrence of SCC originating in the bladder
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that MPM is the most common tumour in patients with irregular pleural thickening, especially with a history of asbestos exposure, but that extrapulmonary SCC should be considered as a differential 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: Carcinoma, Pleural Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Extrapulmonary small cell carcinoma — H.F. van der Heijden, Y.F. Heijdra (2005)
• Cytomorphologic features of metastatic urothelial carcinoma in serous effusions — C.C. Huang, A. Attele, et al. (2013)
• Collision tumour of the pleura composed of small cell carcinoma and malignant mesothelioma — A.H. Lee, I.N. Soomro (2004)
• Pleural small cell carcinoma in pre-existent asbestos related pleural disease — H.F. van der Heijden, Y.F. Heijdra, et al. (2002)
• Etiology of small cell lung carcinoma — W.J. Zeller, D. Schmähl (1985)
• Pleural small cell carcinoma with massive pleural effusion: A case report — J.G. Jang, M.H. Jang, et al. (2019)

Browse more research in Journal of Clinical Pathology, or return to medical research.