A Case of Solitary Splenic Metastasis from Uterine Cervical Cancer

Daisuke Komatsu, Shoichiro Koike, Nobutaka Kobayashi, Hideki Shiozawa, Toshiyuki Nakamura, Takehiko Iwasa and Koh Nakazawa*

Department of Surgery, *Department of Pathology, Matsumoto National Hospital

The prevalence of splenic metastasis from carcinomas varies between 4% and 7% in autopsy studies, but solitary metastasis to the spleen from a primary carcinoma of any source is uncommon. A 52-year-old woman, underwent a radical mastectomy for a carcinoma of the left breast in June 1987 and received surgery for a uterine cervical cancer in January 2001. In March 2002, an abdominal computed tomography examination revealed an ill-defined, low-density area with a diameter of 3 cm in the spleen; this finding was thought to show a metastatic tumor. The patient underwent a splenectomy in April 2002. The histopathological findings of the splenic tumor was squamous cell carcinoma, which was compatible with a secondary focus. Since no other metastases or signs of recurrence were observed, we diagnosed the lesion as a solitary splenic metastasis. The patient is presently alive and has been disease-free for 12 months. Only twelve cases of solitary splenic metastasis from uterine cancer have been reported; in 4 of these reports, the source was uterine cervical cancer. Since long-term survival has been reported, surgery should be selected as an aggressive and positive treatment.

Key words
splenic metastasis, uterine cancer

Reprint requests
Daisuke Komatsu Department of Surgery, Matsumoto National Hospital
1209 Yoshikawamurai-cho, Matsumoto, 399-8701 JAPAN

Accepted
September 24, 2003

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