ABSTRACT

Renal medullary carcinoma is a very aggressive malignant epithelial tumor of the kidney. In this study, three cases of renal medullary carcinoma are presented, one of which was diagnosed by nephrectomy and the others with biopsy. Histologically, the tumors were composed of diffuse or glandular architecture accompanying neutrophilic inflammatory component. The neoplastic cells have plasmacytoid or rhabdoid appearance. Immunohistochemically, the neoplastic cells showed positivity with epithelial membrane antigen, vimentin, Cam5.2, pancytokeratin AE1/AE3 and focally cytokeratin 7 and p53, and showed negativity with Her2neu (c-erb-b2), CEA, high molecular weight cytokeratin (34ßE12) and cytokeratin 20. Two of the patients died within the first year after diagnosis. Renal medullary carcinoma is different from other renal carcinomas by histogenesis, diagnosis and treatment. In this report, three cases presented are discussed along with the cases in the literature.