BackgroundLymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC) is a rare high-grade carcinoma that resembles nasopharyngeal lymphoepithelioma and can occur throughout the body. First reported in 1991, bladder LELC has an incidence of about 1% of all bladder carcinomas. Due to its rare occurrence, prognoses and ideal treatment guidelines have not been clearly defined.MethodsA PubMed search was performed using two terms, “lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma” and “bladder.” Review articles, articles in foreign languages, expression studies, and studies not performed in the bladder were excluded. We report a case of LELC of the bladder including treatment and outcome and performed a systematic review of all 36 available English literatures from 1991 to 2016 including the present case to identify factors affecting disease-free survival.ResultsOne hundred forty cases of bladder LELC were analyzed. The mean age of the patients was 70.1 years ranging from 43 to 90 years with 72% males and 28% females. Pure LELC occurs most often at 46% followed by mixed LELC 28% and predominant LELC 26%. EBV testing was negative in all cases tested. Mean follow-up length for all cases was 33.8 months with no evidence of disease in 62.2%, while 11.1% died of disease, 10.4% alive with metastasis, and 8.2% died without disease. 5.0% of cases had recurrence at an average of 31.3 months. Prognosis is significantly favorable for patients presenting with pure or predominant forms of LELC compared to mixed type (p < 0.0001). The treatment significantly associated with the highest disease mortality and lowest disease-free survival was TURBT alone when compared to any multi-modality treatment (p < 0.01).ConclusionWe conclude that the best treatment modality associated with the highest disease-free survival is multi-modal treatment including radical cystectomy.
A wide range of complications seen among our patients showed that polyacrylamide hydrogel may not be as safe and biocompatible as it was thought previously. Both patients and physicians must be aware of the potential side effects of polyacrylamide hydrogel before gel administration.
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