1. ¹Department of Genitourinary Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, DC, USA
2. ²Department of Pathology, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, Rockville, MD, USA

Correspondence: Dr CJ Davis, MD, Department of Genitourinary Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 6825 16th Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20306-6000, USA. E-mail: davisc@afip.osd.mil

Received 21 December 2005; Revised 26 January 2006; Accepted 27 January 2006; Published online 10 March 2006.

Abstract

This report deals with 11 examples of renal angiomyolipomas (AML) which appear to include an epithelial element as a part of the neoplasm in the form of gross or microscopic cysts—usually both. There were seven females and four males between the ages of 20 and 70 years with mean age of 45 years. Three of these were known to be symptomatic: intermittent flank pain and gross hematuria for 2 months; recurrent hematuria both before and after flank trauma and a third patient with acute abdomen due to a ruptured tumor blood vessel. Cysts were described in three of the six cases where radiographic data were available. Seven tumors were in the right kidney and four in the left. In gross descriptions, cysts were mentioned in seven and they ranged from 6.0 to 2.0 cm with a median and mean maximal diameter of 5.0 and 4.0 cm, respectively. Microscopically, virtually all of the tumors included multiple smaller cysts and these were lined by flat, cuboidal or columnar epithelium and occasionally hobnail epithelium. There was usually a subepithelial collar of poorly differentiated cells, but the solid element of all tumors was myomatous angiomyolipoma; only one case had any adipose tissue. A dominant histological feature was the prominent lymphatic channels—identical to those of lymphangiomyomas and myomatous or triphasic AMLs. They are much more conspicuous in these cystic cases. Immunohistochemically, all tumors tested were reactive with actin, desmin and HMB-45, with the latter being more intensely positive in the subepithelial collars. Estrogen and progesterone receptors were usually positive, also. The behavior of these lesions appears to be no different from that of other AMLs.