Renal cell carcinoma in a horseshoe kidney treated with robot-assisted partial nephrectomy

Horseshoe kidney is one of the most common congenital renal fusion anomalies and the incidence of renal cell carcinoma in horseshoe kidney is predicted to be approximately 5.2/100000 individuals. Because horseshoe kidney merges malformations and vascular changes, open surgery is the standard for treatment. There are no reports of robot-assisted partial nephrectomy (RAPN) for renal cell carcinoma in horseshoe kidney. We describe for the first time the safety and the utility of RAPN in a horseshoe kidney with renal cell carcinoma. Keywords: Horseshoe kidney, Renal cell carcinoma, Robot, Partial nephrectom

Liposarcoma of the spermatic cord associated with scrotum lipoma: A case report and review of the literature

Liposarcoma of the spermatic cord is a rare disease and often mistakenly diagnosed as inguinal hernia, hydrocele, and lipoma. We report the case of a 58-year-old man who presented with persistent discomfort and swelling on the left inguinal region. He was diagnosed with left scrotum lipoma when he was 12 years old. He underwent high orchiectomy and wide resection of the inguinal tumor. Histopathological examination revealed a well-differentiated liposarcoma of the spermatic cord with negative resection margin and scrotum lipoma. To our knowledge, this is the first report of liposarcoma of the spermatic cord with scrotum lipoma in English literature

A Rare Case of Vascular Leiomyosarcoma Originating from a Branch Vessel of the External Iliac Vein

Leiomyosarcoma arising from the external iliac vein is uncommon. This is a report of a 51-year-old Japanese man with venous leiomyosarcoma originating from a branch vessel of the left external iliac vein. The tumor was found during a medical examination, and the patient had no symptoms. Computed tomography showed a 72 × 49 mm mass adjacent to the left external iliac vein. The tumor was resected en-block along with ligation of the external iliac vein due to strong adhesion with the tumor. Histological examination showed venous leiomyosarcoma, and its origin was thought to be a branch vessel of the left external iliac vein. The patient has remained free from recurrence at 30 months after surgery

Diversity in Protein Profiles of Individual Calcium Oxalate Kidney Stones

<div><p>Calcium oxalate kidney stones contain low amounts of proteins, some of which have been implicated in progression or prevention of kidney stone formation. To gain insights into the pathophysiology of urolithiasis, we have characterized protein components of calcium oxalate kidney stones by proteomic approaches. Proteins extracted from kidney stones showed highly heterogeneous migration patterns in gel electrophoresis as reported. This was likely to be mainly due to proteolytic degradation and protein-protein crosslinking of Tamm-Horsfall protein and prothrombin. Protein profiles of calcium oxalate kidney stones were obtained by in-solution protease digestion followed by nanoLC-MALDI-tandem mass spectrometry, which resulted in identification of a total of 92 proteins in stones from 9 urolithiasis patients. Further analysis showed that protein species and their relative amounts were highly variable among individual stones. Although proteins such as prothrombin, osteopontin, calgranulin A and calgranulin B were found in most stones tested, some samples had high contents of prothrombin and osteopontin, while others had high contents of calgranulins. In addition, calgranulin-rich stones had various neutrophil-enriched proteins such as myeloperoxidase and lactotransferrin. These proteomic profiles of individual kidney stones suggest that multiple systems composed of different groups of proteins including leucocyte-derived ones are differently involved in pathogenesis of individual kidney stones depending on situations.</p></div

Western blot analysis of major proteins in CaOx kidney stones.

<p>Extracts of CaOx kidney stones containing 0.1 µg proteins were separated by SDS-PAGE and blotted on a PVDF membrane. To confirm the reactivity of antibodies and indicate the size of the proteins in urine, a concentrated urine sample from a normal subject (1 µg protein) was applied on the last lane of each gel. The membrane was then probed with anti-prothrombin fragment 1, anti-calgranulin A, anti-calgranulin B or anti-THP antibodies. Arrows indicate the positions of prothrombin fragment 1 (upper left), full length THP (upper right), full length calgranulin A (lower left), and full length calgranulin B (lower right). Western blotting was repeated two times and gave similar results. When Sample 1, 3, 9 and 7 (Group 1) was compared with Sample 8, 6, 2 and 5 (Group 2), p-value of Mann-Whitney U-test was 0.028 for prothrombin, calgranulin A and calgranulin B, while that for THP was 0.8857.</p

Kidney stone samples analyzed in this study.

<p>Kidney stone samples analyzed in this study.</p

Analysis of proteins extracted from CaOx kidney stones by SDS-PAGE.

<p>CaOx kidney stones obtained from 8 individuals were solubilized, dialyzed, concentrated, and then the extracts containing 0.2 µg protein each were subjected to SDS-PAGE. Proteins were visualized by silver staining. Sample 4, the yield of which was <0.1 µg/mg stone, also showed similar diffused protein pattern (data not shown). Electrophoresis and staining were carried out three times, and all gave similar results.</p