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Ocular involvement secondary to thyroid carcinomas is uncommon. Uveal metastasis may occur. More rarely, they can be responsible for paraneoplastic syndromes. We report the case of a 64-year-old woman who presented with a severe bilateral panuveitis with venous vasculitis associated with hyperthyroidism from a multinodular goiter, complicated by papillary carcinoma. Systemic steroid therapy was initiated; ocular symptoms resolved completely after total thyroidectomy. Other causes of panuveitis with venous vasculitis were ruled out. This is the first reported case of panuveitis associated with papillary thyroid carcinoma. The occurrence of the ocular symptoms with hyperthyroidism and their remission after surgery supports the possibility that this association may not be coincidental. A paraneoplastic phenomenon is suspected., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Undifferentiated carcinoma of the paranasal sinuses is a rare malignant tumor, characterized by rapid growth, local/regional invasion, metastatic potential and poor prognosis despite aggressive treatment. Clinically, this tumor may manifest as episodes of epistaxis, headache or ophthalmic signs, particularly oculomotor nerve palsies, optic atrophy or even proptosis in the case of orbital extension. We report the case of a patient admitted with a left retrobulbar optic neuropathy, which led to a diagnosis of undifferentiated carcinoma of the sphenoid sinus., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

We report on a study concerning a retrospective monocentric series of 73 lung cancers operated on between July 2004 and December 2009. All patients had a mineralogical analysis of a sample of lung tissue combined with an occupational questionnaire. This combination enables us to suggest a declaration of occupational exposure in almost one third of cases. We suggest that a healthy parenchymal fragment is to be obtained by biopsy routinely in cases of lung cancer surgery. The analysis should be carried out if the occupational survey does not demonstrate any evident exposure and if the patient is not known to be presenting a pleuropulmonary disease following asbestos exposure (pleural plaques and asbestosis)., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

The presence of gas in the spinal canal or pneumorachis is a rare imaging finding, typically incidental. Pneumorachis may be due to several degenerative, traumatic, infectious, tumoral or iatrogenic etiologies. We report three cases of pneumorachis in patients with lumbar back pain. A case occurred in a patient with advanced degenerative disk disease. Another was in a patient with posterior facet synovial cyst. The last was in a patient with locally advanced rectal carcinoma complicated by perforation. Pneumorachis was detected on MRI in two cases and on CT in all three cases.

Introduction: Between 4 and 15% of solid cancers are associated with carcinomatous meningitis ant its unfavorable prognosis. The clinical presentation of neoplastic meningitis typically associates cerebral signs, cranial nerve involvement, and medullary or radicular symptoms., Observation: We report a case of a 58-year-old woman, with a history of breast cancer in remission since 8 years, who presented an acute paraparesia and a pure motor deficit of the left arm. This diffuse lower motor neuron disease was the inaugural sign of carcinomatous meningitis., Conclusion: The diagnosis of cacinomatous meningitis is based on medullar MRI and lumbar puncture. In same cases, clinical signs are limited to a pure diffuse lower motor neuron disease.

We report the case of a patient presenting a sudden bilateral hearing loss. Four years before, a bladder carcinoma was resected and a chemotherapy was started. Gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance images revealed enhancement of both acoustic nerves. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis showed malignant cells consistent with the initial bladder cancer. Meningeal metastases from bladder carcinoma are extremely rare. Systemic chemotherapy and its low meningeal diffusion may enhance the incidence of this complication. Bilateral hearing loss is a rare initial manifestation of meningeal carcinomatosis.

Three cases of bilateral deafness with cytologically-demonstrated meningeal carcinomatosis are reported. The first patient, a 64-year old man, presented with bilateral deafness, gait disturbances, and bilateral facial paresis. The second patient, a 78-year-old man, had bilateral deafness, unsteady gait and fluctuations in consciousness. The last patient, a 69-year-old man, complained of bilateral deafness and severe headache, and presented with right facial paresis and left laterodeviation while walking. All three patients had abnormal cochleo-vestibular findings and brainstem auditory evoked responses (BAER) that suggested peripheral lesions with absent or very delayed I waves. The brain CT scans with an without contrast enhancement were entirely normal, and the diagnosis was established by lumbar puncture. From our own cases and a review of the literature, deafness in meningeal carcinomatosis may start unilaterally but becomes bilateral in less than a week. Vestibular disturbances may not be apparent, but they can be demonstrated in almost all cases. Facial paresis or plegia is also a very frequent finding. The destruction of the eighth and seventh cranial nerves is probably due to direct infiltration by neoplastic cells as well as to ischemia through compression of the nerve supplying vessels. The 3 cases presented here emphasize once again the important fact that meningeal carcinomatosis remains a cytological diagnosis, several lumbar punctures being sometimes necessary, and that cerebrospinal fluid studies cannot yet be supplanted by other diagnostic techniques like contrast-enhanced CT or MRI with gadolinium.

The recent technical developments in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the use of paramagnetic contrast media (gadolinium compounds) have considerably improved the performances of MRI for the detection and characterization of renal tumors. MRI does not have specific merits for the diagnosis of the typical form of cancer, nor for the detection of small kidney tumors, both being mainly based on computed tomography (CT). On the other hand, it can be used for the diagnosis of atypical forms of cancers (small, hypovascular, cystic or hemorrhagic cancers) which raise problems of differential diagnosis with some pseudotumoral lesions, complex cysts and benign tumors. Its complementarity to CT for the characterization of an atypical mass results from the signal information it provides, from a better contrast resolution, and from the possibility to make sections in all planes of space. Except for angiomyolipoma, which has a fatty content, there is no really specific MR criterion as present to evidence benign renal tumors. Concerning regional extension, CT remains the primary technique of choice, as it allows studying the limits of the tumor, the renal compartment and its walls, the renal vein and the inferior vena cava, the neighboring organs and the contralateral kidney all together. Its findings allow defining the indications of MRI, which, as a complementary exploration, is often decisive to assess venous invasion.

The authors present four observation of renal lithiasis associated with a tumor of the upper urinary tract. The rarity of this association and the facility to only consider lithiasis often conceal the tumor. They define the "high risk lithiasis" for which CT-scan is mandatory. Tumor of the urinary tract has to be treated and the prognosis becomes less favorable.

We report the case of an oncocytic carcinoma of the parotid gland affecting a sixty year old woman that was revealed by a right inferior facial paralysis. The histological features were observed in the parotid gland and in the right superior cervical nodes. The originality of this observation as compared to the other very rare cases of oncocytic carcinoma reported is the undoubtful malignant features present right away.

The urological spirale used exclusively as an intraprostatic catheter without communicating with the extracorporeal space offers patients with obstructive invasive prostatic carcinoma, who are unsuitable for surgical intervention, an additional treatment. Without interfering with the function of the urethra the danger of an ascending infection caused by a foreign body and the discomfort of a foreign body can be avoided. Occasionally normal micturition can be established. This was successful in 4 out of 8 patients for 3-12 months approximately, although in 2 of the 4 patients the spirale had to be removed on account of persistent irritation and infection. In the other 2 the spirale was successful until death after approximately 12 months. Even if we do not agree with the high rate of acceptability claimed in men suffering from cancer of the prostata, the attempt to use the spirale seems justified in special circumstances.

Carcinoma of the prostate, above all when accompanied by bone metastases, may be associated with a disseminated intravascular coagulation syndrome. The problem was to determine whether even in the absence of metastases the coagulation state of prostatic carcinoma patients predisposes them to disseminated intravascular coagulation. The authors compared coagulation equilibrium in 13 patients with a prostatic adenoma and 21 with carcinoma of the prostate free of metastases or infection. Fibrin breakdown product levels were abnormally high in 85.7 % of the carcinoma patients (as against 46.2 % of the adenoma sufferers). Clotting factor XIII was decreased in 70 % of carcinoma patients (as against 48.5 % of those with an adenoma). One prostatic carcinoma patient in four shows evidence of latent intravascular coagulation even in the absence of bone metastases. This prevalence justifies thorough coagulation studies in all patients with carcinoma of the prostate.

A double paraneoplasic syndrome with hypersecretion of ADH and ACTH revealed the presence of a small cell bronchial cancer in a man aged 62 years. Water and electrolyte anomalies due to the hypersecretions were of such a degree that an occlusive syndrome occurred. Very high levels of ADH and ACTH were found in the tumoral tissue. The measurement of these levels is rarely conducted at the present time but was able to define the mechanism of abnormal secretion of these two hormones in this case.

The authors present 10 cases of primary cancer of the small intestine which had led to occlusive disorders. After eliminating occlusion due to strangulation and confirming the simple mechanical nature of the obstacle on confrontation of the clinical signs (Koenig's syndrome) and data from the plain X-rays of the unprepared abdomen, they carried out contrast radiography using barium, which enabled them in 6 cases to suspect the malignant nature of the stenosis.

A 67 years old man was admitted on July 1979 for nausea, dysphagia and rectal pain. At age 64 he had undergone radiotherapy on the lower lip for an epidermoid carcinoma. He remained then healthy. His medical history was negative with the exception of chronic bronchitis. He had never been exposed to toxic agents or drugs and had never left Europe. A few days after admission he suffered acute intestinal obstruction but at laparostomy no etiology was found. At the same time the patient complained of pain in all four limbs and he was found to have diffuse wasting of muscles, areflexia and distal sensory loss. No sign of dysautonomia was present. Physical examination was negative with the exception of a cervical lymphadenopathy. The lymph node biopsy showed an undifferentiated metastatic carcinoma. Negative investigations included: blood cells count; serum ionogram and immunoelectrophoresis; thyroid function tests; serological test for Chagas' disease. The following abnormalities were found: ESR: 55-105; CSF protein: 145 mg/100 ml and 1 cell mm3; whole blood folic acid: 1,7 mg/ml; Hbs antigen was present in blood; EMG showed evidence of denervation but motor conduction velocities were normal. By September the patient's weakness had increased and complete intestinal obstruction persisted. At oesophageal, gastric and duodenal fibroscopy no contraction was visible, and biopsies were negative. The patient died of peritonitis on October 5th, 1979. At necropsy peritonitis secondary to multiple perforation of the large bowel was found. No recurrence of the lip carcinoma or metastase or evidence of a primary carcinoma was found. Light microscopy showed no evidence of amyloidosis or scleroderma. Examination of the alimentary tract showed abnormalities restricted to the myenteric plexuses which varied from one level to another. In the small bowel there was hyperplasia of the smooth muscle and the myenteric plexuses were enlarged by marked proliferation of Schwann cells. Severe neuronal loss and nodules of Nageotte were also noted. Schwann cells proliferation was less marked in the stomach and large bowel. Lympho-histiocytic infiltration strictly confined to the region of the myenteric plexuses was present in oesophagus, stomach, large bowel and rectum. Mild chronic inflammatory lesions were also found in anterior and posterior spinal roots and semi-lunar ganglia. The striking feature of this case is the association of an undifferentiated carcinoma and a polyradiculoneuritis with a complete alimentary tract palsy of rapid onset, secondary to lesions restricted to the myenteric plexuses. The low folate level was insufficient to explain the neuropathy. Investigations showed no evidence of the usual causes of intestinal pseudo-obstruction: muscular, dysautonomic, toxic, plexic (idiopathic, familial, inflammatory), Chagas' disease). The clinical course, the pathological pictures of the alimentary tract and spinal roots and the association with a carcinoma suggest that our case may represent a paraneoplastic syndrome...

Report of a case of metastatic adrenal cortical carcinoma with Cushing's syndrome treated with OP'DDD, 15 g per day. This therapy was followed by the regression of the adrenal tumour and of its metastases since three years.