Is serum hyaluronic acid level useful for evaluating the clinical course of malignant mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis?

Our plain-English summary of Is serum hyaluronic acid level useful for evaluating the clinical course of malignant mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis?, by K. Haga, N. Shinohara, T. Harabayashi, et al (BJU International, 1999).

The study

• Authors: K. Haga, N. Shinohara, T. Harabayashi, T. Demura, T. Koyanagi
• Journal: BJU International
• Published: 1999;84(6):729-30
• Type of article: Case report
• Cited by: 4 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

The authors reported a case of malignant mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis and asked whether serum hyaluronic acid could be used to follow its clinical course. A 70-year-old man in Japan presented in July 1995 with an 8-year history of a slowly enlarging right intrascrotal mass. It was first diagnosed clinically as a hydrocele, but yellow turbid fluid obtained by puncture contained malignant cells. He had no history of trauma or of exposure to asbestos. Chest and abdominal CT showed no remarkable lesions. He underwent radical right orchidectomy, and histology showed malignant mesothelioma originating from the tunica vaginalis. Fifteen months later, small nodules developed in the right scrotum and enlarged. The patient declined wide resection, so recurrent scrotal tumours were excised twice in 1997. A nodule soon recurred and grew rapidly. He declined systemic chemotherapy, and in August 1998 he underwent wide genital excision, including penectomy, as palliation. Serum hyaluronic acid was monitored during follow-up. It rose with tumour recurrence and returned to normal after resection of the recurrent tumour. At the time of the report the patient was stable, with no new metastatic lesions and normal serum hyaluronic acid. The authors concluded that serum hyaluronic acid could serve as a useful tumour marker in such cases.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This case report, from the Department of Urology at Hokkaido University in Japan, described one patient with malignant mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis, the membrane around the testis. A 70-year-old man came to the clinic in July 1995 with a right scrotal mass that had been slowly growing for 8 years. Doctors first thought it was a hydrocele (a fluid collection), but fluid drawn from it contained malignant cells. The article reported that he had no history of trauma or of exposure to asbestos. After a radical right orchidectomy (removal of the testis), small nodules appeared in the scrotum fifteen months later. Recurrent tumours were removed twice in 1997. He declined chemotherapy, and in August 1998 he had a wide genital excision as palliation. Throughout follow-up the doctors measured hyaluronic acid in his blood. The level rose when the tumour recurred and returned to normal after the recurrent tumour was removed. When the article was written he was stable with no new metastatic lesions. The authors concluded that in this patient serum hyaluronic acid could serve as a useful tumour marker.

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 70-year-old man seen at the Department of Urology, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan. He presented in July 1995 with an 8-year history of a slowly enlarging right intrascrotal mass and was followed through 1998.
• Exposure: The article reports that the patient had no history of trauma or of exposure to asbestos. The study followed serum hyaluronic acid levels as a possible clinical marker during follow-up.
• Main results:
  • The lesion was first diagnosed clinically as a hydrocele, but fluid obtained by puncture contained malignant cells.
  • After radical right orchidectomy, histological examination showed malignant mesothelioma originating from the tunica vaginalis.
  • Fifteen months later, small nodules developed in the right scrotum. Recurrent scrotal tumours were excised twice in 1997.
  • In August 1998, after the patient rejected chemotherapy, he underwent wide genital excision (with penectomy only) as palliation for the scrotal tumour.
  • In this patient, serum hyaluronic acid values increased with tumour recurrence and returned to normal after resection of the recurrent tumour.
  • At the time of reporting, the patient was stable with no new metastatic lesions, and serum hyaluronic acid remained within normal limits.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that, because serum hyaluronic acid rose on tumour relapse in this case, it could serve as a useful tumour marker in such cases.

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Hyaluronic Acid, Malignant Mesothelioma, Tunica Vaginalis, Hydrocele, Histology, Chemotherapy.

Related studies

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• Pleural effusion hyaluronic acid as a prognostic marker in pleural malignant mesothelioma — J. Creaney, I.M. Dick, et al. (2013)
• Utility of hyaluronic acid in pleural fluid for differential diagnosis of pleural effusions: likelihood ratios for malignant mesothelioma — S. Atagi, M. Ogawara, et al. (1997)
• Clinical significance of the immunometric measurements of hyaluronic acid — E.H. Cooper, B.J. Rathbone (1990)
• Histochemical demonstration of hyaluronic acid in pleural mesotheliomas — J.C. Wagner, D.E. Munday, et al. (1962)
• Hyaluronic acid in the pleural fluid of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma — N. Fujimoto, K. Gemba, et al. (2013)

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