Solitary fibrous mesothelioma of the peritoneum

Our plain-English summary of Solitary fibrous mesothelioma of the peritoneum, by A.P. Stout (Cancer, 1950).

The study

• Author: A.P. Stout
• Journal: Cancer
• Published: 1950;3(5):820-5
• Cited by: 91 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy.

In plain English

This 1950 article is a case report of one patient, a 68-year-old American man admitted to the Presbyterian Hospital in New York in April 1947 after weight loss, disorientation and slurred speech. Doctors felt a large firm mass in his upper abdomen, and a chest X-ray showed a shadow suggesting calcification of the pleura. In May 1947 surgeons removed intact an encapsulated tumor measuring 14 x 16 x 9 cm and weighing 1168 gm. Under the microscope it was a fibrous growth of spindle-shaped cells with no definite pattern and marked variability. His physician reported no evidence of recurrence nearly three years after the operation. The author concluded that this peritoneal tumor exactly resembled the benign form of solitary mesothelioma previously recorded only in the pleura, and proposed adding the word "fibrous" to its name. The author acknowledged that the idea that these tumors arise from mesothelial cells did not rest on a solid scientific foundation. The article does not mention asbestos or the patient's work history.

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 (single patient)
• Who was studied: One 68-year-old American man of Italian parentage, admitted to the Presbyterian Hospital, New York, on April 4, 1947, and operated on May 26, 1947
• Exposure: Not reported. The article does not mention asbestos, any fiber type, or the patient's occupation.
• Main results:
  • A chest X-ray of the patient showed a shadow in the right lower lung field suggesting calcification of the pleura, and a little pleural calcification at the left apex. The article does not discuss the cause.
  • At operation the patient's abdominal mass was a large encapsulated tumor, about the size of a large grapefruit, and was removed intact.
  • The removed tumor measured 14 x 16 x 9 cm and weighed 1168 gm.
  • Under the microscope the tumor was a fibrous growth of spindle-shaped cells with no definite growth pattern and marked variability.
  • The author described the tumor as an example of the benign variant of the solitary mesotheliomas.
  • The patient's physician reported no evidence of recurrence nearly three years after the operation.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the peritoneal tumor exactly resembled the solitary (localized) mesotheliomas of the pleura. The author proposed adding the adjective "fibrous" to the name to set it apart from other benign tumors that other researchers had called mesothelioma.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that the hypothesis that these tumors derive from mesothelial cells does not rest on a solid scientific foundation, because only one such tumor (a pleural case) had been grown in tissue culture.

Topics

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

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

Related studies

• Solitary benign fibrous mesothelioma of the peritoneum: A rare entity in a 2-year-old child — S. Singh, M. Sangwan, et al. (2016)
• Solitary fibrous tumors of the pleura: an estimation of population incidence — T. Thorgeirsson, H.J. Isaksson, et al. (2010)
• Solitary fibrous tumour of the pleura: A case report — G. Rakovich, M. Laflamme, et al. (2010)
• Solitary fibrous tumor of the pleura — A. Orki, A. Kosar, et al. (2008)
• Solitary benign fibrous tumors of the pleura — M.A. Regal, A.M. Al Rubaish, et al. (2008)
• Solitary fibrous tumors of the pleura: a case report and review of the literature — P. Mordenti, R. Di Cicilia, et al. (2013)

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