Invasive urothelial carcinoma with chordoid features of the ureter: a rare entity and review of literature
Invasive urothelial carcinoma (UC) is characterized by some histologic variants that can sometimes lead to diagnostic difficulty. In addition to those described by the World Health Organization. Recently invasive urothelial carcinoma with chordoid features (UCC) has been described as a distinct entity and there are relatively few reported cases in the English-language literature. To date 13 cases of UCC have been reported in 2 case series, respectively in 2009 and 2015. We report the 14(th) case in an 80-year-old female, and to the best of our knowledge this is the second case report of UCC in the ureter. She was admitted to our hospital with macroscopic haematuria and unspecific left lower abdominal pain. Computed tomography scan revealed a soft tissue nodule in the middle of the left ureter. The left nephroureterectomy was performed. Morphologically, 85% areas had acellular myxoid stroma was associated with the neoplastic cells. The neoplastic cells had scant eosinophilic cytoplasm and were arranged into cords closely mimicking chordoma or extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma. 15% areas was typical invasive urothelial carcinoma, and focal areas had transition phenomenon between them. Immunohistochemically, the tumor cells were positive for CK, 34βE12 and p63, but were negative for S100, AFP, CD34, Syn and CgA. The final histopathological diagnosis was UCC of the ureter.