A Case of Incidentally Found Bilateral Retroperitoneal Cavernous Hemangiomas

Shunsuke Yui,Akiko Tonooka,Koji Mikami,Masayoshi Zaitsu,Takumi Takeuchi,Toshimasa Uekusa,Yuta Takeshima

doi:10.4236/oju.2011.13012

Abstract

A 59-year-old male was admitted to our hospital because of incidentally found right retroperitoneal tumor. He had undergone removal of a hemangioma in the left oral cavity four years before. An abdominal CT scan performed in our hospital revealed poorly enhanced bilateral retroperitoneal tumors adjacent to kidneys. Those tumors were of low signal intensity on T1-weighted images and high on T2-weighted images by magnetic resonance imaging. The right retroperitoneal tumor of 2.5 cm in size was surgically removed and histopathological examination indicated cavernous hemangioma. The smaller left retroperitoneal tumor of 1.1 cm in size was left untouched to be followed up, as we supposed that it has the same benign pathology. There have been no previous cases of retroperitoneal cavernous hemangioma as a presentation of multiple hemangiomas.

Highlights

Primary retroperitoneal tumors just account for 0.2% of all tumors in a old article published in 1954 [1] and there are no available reports definitely describing the recent prevalence of retroperitoneal tumors
The smaller left retroperitoneal tumor of 1.1 cm in size was left untouched to be followed up, as we supposed that it has the same benign pathology
There have been no previous cases of retroperitoneal cavernous hemangioma as a presentation of multiple hemangiomas

Summary

Introduction

Primary retroperitoneal tumors just account for 0.2% of all tumors in a old article published in 1954 [1] and there are no available reports definitely describing the recent prevalence of retroperitoneal tumors. Braasch et al collected 101 cases of retroperitoneal tumor from the literature and reported in 1967 that more than 80% of cases were malignant and symptomatic [2]. Smaller, and less symptomatic retroperitoneal tumors must be diagnosed with the improvement and prevalence of advanced imaging modalities as CT scan, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasonography. Nakajima et al reported in 1997 that 10 (40%) out of 25 retroperitoneal tumors were malignant [3], the percentage of malignancy among all diagnosed retroperitoneal tumors seems decreased than before. That there have been only few reports of retroperitoneal hemangioma diagnosed only with radiological imagings [4] may indicate that surgical procedure has been chosen for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. We show a case of bilateral retroperitoneal cavernous hemangiomas which was difficult to be diagnosed before surgical extirpation

Case Report

Findings

Discussion