Lung metastasis in a patient with lymphangioleiomyomatosis

Abstract

Pulmonary lymphangioleiomyomatosis (PLAM) is a rare disease, which occurs mainly in women of reproductive age, and occasionally in postmenopausal women. We report a small pulmonary metastatic uterine body cancer in a 63-year-old female patient with PLAM. In patients with PLAM, differential diagnostic consideration is proliferation of pneumocytes and PLAM cells in addition to benign tumor as well as primary and metastatic lung cancer. We emphasize difficulties in the clinical and roentgenological diagnosis in this kind of combined pathology. Even if the association we describe is probably fortuitous, not only a primary but also a metastatic tumor is suspected when a solitary pulmonary nodule is detected in a patient that has been previously treated for carcinoma in any organs.