Mucinous tubular and spindle cell carcinoma of the kidney: a report of seven cases

Abstract

Objective To further analyse the imaging features and tumour outcomes of mucinous tubular and spindle cell carcinoma (MTSCC) of the kidney. Materials and methods The current study retrospectively reviewed the clinical information of seven patients diagnosed with MTSCC at our institution from January 2011 to March 2023. Results The median age at diagnosis was 52 years (range, 32–66 years) and the majority of patients were female (71.4%). On conventional abdominal ultrasound, the majority of the tumours (5/7) were heterogeneous hypoechoic or slightly hypoechoic. Colour Doppler flow imaging showed blood flow within the tumour in 2 cases and peripheral blood flow signal in 1 case. On non-enhanced CT, all tumours had a spherical or ovoid shape, with an expansile growth mode, and had clear or unclear boundaries with the surrounding renal parenchyma. The tumours were either partially exophytic (n = 4) or parenchymal (n = 3), while no cases of completely exophytic tumour was observed (n = 0). On contrast-enhanced CT, the majority of tumours (5/7) showed a heterogenous pattern of enhancement and the mean tumour diameter was 6.7 ± 4.4 cm (range, 2.1–16.8 cm). All patients underwent partial or radical nephrectomy for pT1a (42.9%), pT1b (28.5%), pT2 (14.3%) or pT3b (14.3%) stage. Among these, 1 patient (14.3%) had a level I tumour thrombus at diagnosis and died of disease 24.5 months later. The remaining patients had no recurrence or metastasis. Conclusion MTSCC is not universally indolent, which tends to occur in female patients of a broad range of ages. MTSCC is a hypovascular renal tumour, which is different from clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC); however, it is difficult to distinguish MTSCC from other hypovascular RCC subtypes because of the overlap of their imaging characteristics.