[A case report of surgical resection of renal cell carcinoma with intrathoracic metastasis].

Reported herein is a surgical resection of rare intrathoracic metastasis of renal cell carcinoma. A 50-year-old man was admitted because of dispnea. Chest roentgenogram and computed tomogram (CT) revealed massive left pleural effusion, diffuse pleural thickening and multiple pleural tumors. Pleural biopsy with video assisted thoracoscopic surgery was performed and the pathological diagnosis of the pleural tumor was adenocarcinoma or malignant mesothelioma. Furthermore, abdominal CT showed a left renal tumor of 5 cm in diameter. For these information, the patient was diagnosed with pleural metastasis of renal cell carcinoma or renal metastasis of diffuse malignant pleural mesothelioma. Because there is no effective medical treatment for these two diseases, and the functions of patient's other organs were good, a left pleuropneumonectomy and left nephrectomy was performed at once. The final pathological diagnosis was renal cell carcinoma. Most of the metastatic lesions were localized in the pleura, though minute subpleural metastasis was seen.