Clear Cell Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Novel Category of Renal Cell Neoplasm

Abstract

Copyright: © 2012 Alexiev BA. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (clear cell RCC) and papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma (papillary RCC) are the most common carcinomas of the renal tubular epithelium and distinguishing them from one another is important because they have different prognoses [1-3]. Although most of the time they can be distinguished easily in routine sections, occasionally, overlapping morphologic findings make classification difficult. Rarely, RCC are encountered in which there are areas of papillary architecture, but there are extensive populations of cells with clear cytoplasm [1-3]. In this situation, it is unclear whether they should be classified as clear cell RCC or papillary RCC. Recently, a distinctive tumor characterized by papillary architecture and composed entirely of clear cells has been described as arising in kidneys with or without end-stage renal disease and is designated as ‘‘Clear Cell Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma’’ (CCPC) [1-3].