Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 14, 2019; 25(18): 2264-2270
Published online May 14, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i18.2264
Recurrent renal cell carcinoma leading to a misdiagnosis of polycystic liver disease: A case report
Chen Liang, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Masanao Kurata, Shingo Sakashita, Tatsuya Oda, Nobuhiro Ohkohchi
Chen Liang, Kazuhiro Takahashi, Masanao Kurata, Tatsuya Oda, Nobuhiro Ohkohchi, Department of Surgery, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture 3058575, Japan
Shingo Sakashita, Department of Diagnostic Pathology, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture 3058575, Japan
Author contributions: Liang C, Takahashi K, Kurata M, Sakashita S, Oda T and Ohkohchi N contributed equally to this work; Liang C and Takahashi K wrote the paper; all authors provided final approval of the version that was submitted.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for the publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kazuhiro Takahashi, MD, PhD, Doctor, Department of Surgery, University of Tsukuba, Tennoudai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture 3058575, Japan. kazu1123@md.tsukuba.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-29-8533221 Fax: +81-29-8533222
Received: March 6, 2019
Peer-review started: March 6, 2019
First decision: April 5, 2019
Revised: April 17, 2019
Accepted: April 19, 2019
Article in press: April 20, 2019
Published online: May 14, 2019
Processing time: 70 Days and 2.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Polycystic liver disease (PCLD) usually exhibits typical presentations in imaging studies, but the diagnosis is sometimes challenging because of the late onset of this genetic disorder and the atypical presentations of other diseases. In a case of cystic metastasis of renal cell carcinoma, the disease could be misdiagnosed as PCLD due to the clinical and radiological similarity between these disorders. This case demonstrates that when multiple cystic lesions are observed in the liver, it is important to first exclude the cystic metastasis of a cancer. Additionally, some specific types of cancer can have different presentations at metastasis and recurrence.