| Cystic nephroma | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Micrograph of a cystic nephroma (left of image). Normal kidney is seen on the right. H&E stain. | |
| Specialty | Oncology  |
A cystic nephroma, also known as multilocular cystic nephroma, mixed epithelial stromal tumour (MEST) and renal epithelial stromal tumour (REST),[1] is a type of rare benign kidney tumour.
Symptoms[edit]
Cystic nephromas are often asymptomatic. They are typically discovered on medical imaging incidentally (i.e. an incidentaloma).
Diagnosis[edit]
Cystic nephromas are diagnosed by biopsy or excision. It is important to correctly diagnose them as, radiologically, they may mimic the appearance of a renal cell carcinoma that is cystic.[2]
Pathologic diagnosis[edit]
The characteristics of cystic nephromas are:
- Cysts lined by a simple epithelium with a hobnail morphology, i.e. the nuclei of the cyst lining epithelium bulges into the lumen of the cysts,
- Ovarian-like stroma that has a:
- Spindle cell morphology, and has a
- Basophilic cytoplasm.
Cystic nephromas have an immunostaining pattern like ovarian stroma; they are positive for:
Differential diagnosis[edit]
- cystic partially differentiated nephroblastoma
- cystic standard nephroblastoma (cystic Wilm's tumor)
- cystic mesoblastic nephroma
- cystic renal cell carcinoma
- other renal cysts
Additional images[edit]
-
Micrograph of a cystic nephroma. H&E stain.
References[edit]
- ^ Turbiner J, Amin MB, Humphrey PA, Srigley JR, De Leval L, Radhakrishnan A, Oliva E (April 2007). "Cystic nephroma and mixed epithelial and stromal tumor of kidney: a detailed clinicopathologic analysis of 34 cases and proposal for renal epithelial and stromal tumor (REST) as a unifying term". The American Journal of Surgical Pathology. 31 (4): 489–500. doi:10.1097/PAS.0b013e31802bdd56. PMID 17414095.
- ^ Small JE, Jinnteh T, Hong X, Tuncali K, Seltzer SE, Ros PR (11 August 2003). "Cystic Nephroma". BrighamRAD Teaching Case Database. Archived from the original on 2004-10-24.