Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma, by A. Bolio-Cicero, J. Aguirre, R. Perez-Tamayo (American Journal of Clinical Pathology, 1961).

The study

• Authors: A. Bolio-Cicero, J. Aguirre, R. Perez-Tamayo
• Journal: American Journal of Clinical Pathology
• Published: 1961;36:417-26
• Cited by: 25 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

This paper deals with the clinical and pathologic features of 5 examples of peritoneal mesothelioma observed at autopsy and 1 diagnosed by means of biopsy. Emphasis is given to the similarity of clinical course and gross and microscopic structure. Several reasons are discussed for regarding malignant peritoneal mesotheliomas as a well defined clinicopathologic entity, and some useful criteria are outlined that may serve to establish the diagnosis.

PubMed has no abstract for this study. This is the authors' abstract, copied from the article.

In plain English

This 1961 article described six patients with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma, a cancer of the abdominal lining, seen at the National University Medical School in Mexico City. Among 2767 autopsies from January 1955 to December 1959, 823 showed malignant tumors, 5 of them (0.6 per cent) malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. A biopsy case was added, and all were compared with 29 published cases. Four patients were women and 2 were men, aged 13 to 92. Four had an illness of 12 months or less; the other 2 had no accurate duration recorded. Main symptoms included abdominal pain, abdominal swelling, digestive problems and signs suggesting bowel obstruction. No patient was suspected clinically of having the tumor: 4 were diagnosed after surgery and biopsy, 2 at autopsy. None of the 5 autopsies showed distant spread, but 3 patients had liver invasion, and in 2 of them liver nodules were believed to be metastases. Microscopic patterns were mixed. The authors concluded that the disease is a well-defined entity and outlined diagnostic criteria. The article does not mention asbestos or any cause.

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 series: 5 autopsy cases and 1 surgical biopsy case, compared with 29 cases from the published literature
• Who was studied: Autopsy files of the Pathology Unit of the National University Medical School, Mexico City, January 1955 to December 1959. Of 2767 autopsies, 823 were malignant tumors and 5 of these were malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. One additional case came from the surgical pathology files. Four patients were women and 2 were men.
• Main results:
  • Among the 6 patients, ages ranged from 13 to 92 years; the 92-year-old was the biopsy case. The average age was 42 years.
  • Four of the 6 patients were women and 2 were men.
  • Four of the 6 patients had a clinical course of 12 months or less.
  • For the other 2 patients, the case histories gave no accurate data on how long the illness lasted.
  • The main symptoms, in this series and in the published cases, were abdominal pain, increase in abdominal volume, gastrointestinal disturbances such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, and symptoms suggesting intestinal occlusion (blockage).
  • Mesothelioma was not suspected clinically in any of the 6 cases. It was diagnosed after laparotomy and biopsy in 4, and at autopsy in 2.
  • Before diagnosis, 2 patients were thought to have cirrhosis of the liver and 1 an epigastric cyst.
  • None of the 5 autopsies showed distant metastasis. Among the 29 published cases, 2 did.
  • Three patients had invasion of the liver. In 2 of them, nodules in the liver were believed to be metastatic.
  • One patient had spread to the lymph nodes around the stomach.
  • Under the microscope, the tubular pattern was seen in 5 patients, 3 of whom also had solid areas. Papillary structure was seen in 2, and a fibrous or spindle cell pattern in 2.
  • No mitoses (dividing cells) were seen in 4 of the 6 patients.
  • Material in the tumors stained with Alcian blue and toluidine blue and was sensitive to the enzyme hyaluronidase.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that malignant peritoneal mesothelioma is a well-defined clinical and pathological entity, and they outlined criteria that may help establish the diagnosis.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The one patient diagnosed only by biopsy was lost to follow-up.

Topics

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

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Peritoneal Mesothelioma, Autopsy, Biopsy.

Related studies

• Peritoneal mesothelioma; case report — E.P. Pendergrass, J. Edeiken (1954)
• The pathology of mesotheliomata and an analysis of their association with asbestos exposure — D.O. Hourihane (1964)
• Mesothelioma of the pelvic peritoneum resembling papillary cystadenocarcinoma of the ovary; case report — M. Swerdlow (1959)
• Sarcomatoid Peritoneal Mesothelioma: Clinicopathologic Correlation of 13 Cases — E.N. Pavlisko, V.L. Roggli (2015)
• Characterization of DNA hypermethylation in two cases of peritoneal mesothelioma — R. Hama, Y. Watanabe, et al. (2012)
• Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma with lower extremity metastasis: PET/CT imaging — B.B. Le, B.D. Nguyen (2015)

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