Rupture of a renal cell carcinoma in a child: five-year tumor-free survival and literature review.
The third case of presumably spontaneous rupture of a hypernephroma in a child is reported. This patient remains free of disease more than 5 years following radical nephrectomy, radiation and chemotherapy. Although renal adenocarcinoma in children remains a rare disease, more than 80 cases have appeared in the literature, making it necessary now to consider this tumor in the differential diagnosis of all childhood abdominal masses. Equally significant is the observation that presentation as an acute abdominal crisis in a child can occur, making it important that diagnostic considerations in such situations include hypernephroma, as well as Wilms' tumor. Review of the literature shows that occasional cures from spontaneous retroperitoneal rupture of hypernephromas have been reported in adults, but not in children, although this child has survived in spite of tumor spillage in the free peritoneal cavity.