Small intestinal metastases from renal cell carcinoma: A case report and literature review

Abstract

We report a case of small intestinal metastasis from renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in a 57-year-old female. The patient had undergone partial nephrectomy for a right RCC (pT1aN0M0) in June 1997. She later developed multiple metastases, in the lungs, brain, and bone, and was admitted with nausea, vomiting, and appetite loss in April 2003. She presented with melaena a few weeks after her admission and a computed tomographic scan revealed a small bowel mass that was not definitively diagnosed. We removed the mass surgically, and the histological features confirmed the diagnosis as metastatic RCC. The patient recovered and could consume, but died of brain metastases 102 days after the surgery. Metastasis of RCC in the small bowel is a rare entity clinically. To our knowledge, this is only the 20th case of small intestinal metastasis from RCC reported in the Japanese and English literature.