Eosinophilic variant of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma metastasizing to the liver: Diagnostic pitfall

Eosinophilic variant of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma metastasizing to the liver: Diagnostic pitfall

Blog Article

An 82-year-old man developed a hypervascular renal tumor, 2 cm in size, and multiple liver tumors.Liver tumors had obscured tumor margins on ultrasonography.Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) showed no areas of avid radiotracer uptake in the liver.

Routine pathological examination failed to demonstrate tumor cells in 9 tissue samples obtained from repeated core needle biopsies.Even a frozen section of the liver segment 8 tumor further failed to prove malignant cells, and an additive frozen section of the liver section 2 tumor finally proved atypical cells growing in tubular and solid fashions with Pin Switch Bracket eosinophilic cytoplasm.Tumors showed expansive growth patterns, were in direct contact with normal liver cells, had abundant micro-vessels, had only sparse hyalinized septa, and had no pale Lazy Susan cells.

Immunostaining revealed the tumor cells to be positive for CD10, CD117, and E-cadherin and negative for CK7, and PAX8, leading to the diagnosis of metastatic chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (chRCC) in the liver.Arginase-1 immunostaining clearly demarcated the boundary between the chRCC cells and normal hepatic cells.Diagnostic physicians should note that chRCCs are of low-grade malignancy despite their abundant intra-tumoral blood flow and can often pose imaging and pathologic diagnostic difficulties.