An important emerging role of the surgical pathologist besides the traditional tasks of establishment of the diagnosis and documentation of prognostic and predictive factors, is to recognize the possibility of a hereditary condition in cases where the histology is suggestive for a familial cancer syndrome. In recent years, the knowledge regarding all of the above roles, including the role of recognition of familial cancer, has particularly expanded in renal neoplasms with the close scrutiny to morphology, molecular correlates and clinical features of the different sub-types of renal cell carcinoma. Awareness of these clinically distinctive sub-types and their associated histologic clues will prompt the pathologist for further immunohistochemical or molecular work up, to look for clinical information to support the suspected diagnosis of familial cancer, to alert managing physician/s to look for stigmata of history of familial cancer, which will permit triaging patients and their families for appropriate genetic counseling. This review provides a comprehensive review of the known sub-types of renal cell carcinoma that have a predilection to occur in the setting of hereditary disease; examples include renal cancers occurring in the background of von Hippel Lindau disease, hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell carcinoma syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, Birt Hogg Dube syndrome and succinate dehydrogenase deficiency. Herein we focus on diagnostic clues for renal tumors occurring in a non-pediatric setting that should prompt their correct recognition and reiterate the importance of the correct diagnosis.
Seminars in diagnostic pathology. 2018 Feb 14 [Epub ahead of print]
Holger Moch, Riuko Ohashi, Jatin S Gandhi, Mahul B Amin
Department of Pathology and Molecular Pathology, University and University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: ., Histopathology Core Facility, Niigata University Faculty of Medicine, Niigata, Japan; Division of Molecular and Diagnostic Pathology, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata, Japan., Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Sciences, Memphis, USA., Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Sciences, Memphis, USA; Department of Urology, University of Tennessee Health Sciences, Memphis, USA.