Alessandro Del Gobbo et al., Synchronous pleural and peritoneal malignant mesothelioma: a case report and review of literature. International Journal of Clinical & Experimental Pathology

Alessandro Del Gobbo¹, Stefano Fiori¹, Gabriella Gaudioso¹, Eleonora Bonaparte¹, Silvia Tabano², Alessandro Palleschi³, Silvano Bosari², Stefano Ferrero⁴

¹Division of Pathology, Fondazione IRCCS “Ca’ Granda” – Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico and University of Milan Medical School, Italy
²Department of Clinical/Surgical Pathophysiology and Organ Transplant, University of Milan Medical School and Division of Pathology, Fondazione IRCCS “Ca’ Granda” – Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Italy
³Division of Thoracic Surgery, Fondazione IRCCS “Ca’ Granda” Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy
⁴Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, University of Milan Medical School and Division of Pathology, Fondazione IRCCS “Ca’ Granda” – Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Italy

Abstract

The coexistence of mesothelioma and other primary malignancies has been previously reported in literature, but the finding of a pleural mesothelioma with a synchronous peritoneal mesothelioma has not been reported so far. We report a case of a 58-years-old woman that came to our attention for the incidental finding of an inguinal mass. Fine-needle biopsies of the mass and a thoracoscopy with pleural biopsies were performed, after imaging studies showed pleural thickenings suspicious for malignancy. Histological morphology and growth pattern were similar in both cases. Both tumors stained for calretinin, but only the pleural mesothelioma showed positivity for Wilms-Tumor 1 antibody. We tried to demonstrate with molecular biology techniques whether they were synchronous or one was the metastasis of the other, but our studies did not give informative results. The prognosis in this case is poor, and after 6 months the patient is still following a chemotherapy regimen, which is the only practicable approach given the extent of the disease.

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