Pulmonary blastoma that was first diagnosed as dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma using medical thoracoscopy: A case report

Abstract

Rationale: Pulmonary blastoma is an extremely rare and highly aggressive tumor. Only a few hundred cases of pulmonary blastoma have been reported. In other cases, a definitive diagnosis is often made through surgical resection. The use of preoperative histopathological sampling in diagnosing was of limited value because of the variety of pulmonary blastoma histology. And there was no literature that the first biopsy was attempted with medical thoracoscopy for diagnosis.

Patient concerns: A 65-year-old man presented to our hospital with pleural effusion and lung mass.

Diagnoses: The patient was initially diagnosed with dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma by medical thoracoscopic biopsy but the final diagnosis was pulmonary blastoma through bilobectomy.

Interventions: Medical thoracoscopy, and video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (bilobectomy) followed by adjuvant chemotherapy.

Outcomes: After surgical resection of the tumor, adjuvant chemotherapy has been performed 5 cycles at 3 weeks intervals, and there was no evidence of recurrence on follow-up computed tomography performed 4 months after surgery.

Lessons: Medical thoracoscopy is useful for the diagnosis of indeterminate pleural effusion; however, caution is needed when confirming rare malignancies, such as pulmonary blastoma. Although surgical resection is the treatment of choice, appropriate adjuvant chemotherapy to improve the prognosis may be necessary if there is pleural metastasis.