Case Reports in Urology

Urethral caruncles are the most frequent benign tumors of the female urethra. Most of them are found in postmenopausal women, and they are rare in childhood. Only a few pediatric cases have been published in the literature. In this report, we present a case series of three pediatric patients with a urethral caruncle.

Zinner syndrome is a rare congenital anomaly characterized by a triad of renal dysgenesis/agenesis, cysts in the ipsilateral seminal vesicle, and ejaculatory duct obstruction. Though often diagnosed in infancy, the diagnoses can be incidentally found in adults who present with nonspecific genitourinary symptoms including dysuria, ejaculatory dysfunction, or genital pain. We present an unusual case of a 29-year-old male patient who presented to the emergency department with recurrent testicular pain and hematospermia and was found to have an atrophic right kidney with an ectopic ureter implanting into a cystic seminal vesicle. These findings were consistent with a rare subvariant of Zinner syndrome only previously described four times in the literature. We performed a robotic-assisted laparoscopic ectopic nephroureterectomy with sparing of his seminal vesicle. To our knowledge, this is the first report to describe the safe and effective use of robotic surgery in this setting to remove affected anatomy while preserving the patient’s seminal vesicle.

Bladder metastasis from cutaneous melanoma is a rare pathology. A 79-year-old woman presented to the haematuria clinic on account of painless visible haematuria. Ten years prior to this index presentation, she was diagnosed with melanoma on her right thigh following a total excision of the skin lesion. Cystoscopy showed a pigmented bladder tumour, and the histology report following a transurethral resection was consistent with metastatic melanoma, and further imaging revealed metastasis to the lungs, adrenals, and lymph nodes.

Pelvic abscess is mostly caused by gynecological inflammation or digestive system diseases such as appendicitis or Crohn’s disease. This case of pelvic abscess originates from ureteral calculus and is not commonly seen in clinical practice. This is mainly due to the patient’s ureteral stones not being actively treated. After local puncture and pus extraction, as well as the application of effective antibiotics, the patient recovered. Therefore, this case provides clinical doctors with experience that ureteral stones may cause serious complications and should be actively treated after detection.

A 64-year-old man was diagnosed with invasive bladder and right lower ureteral urothelial cancer with right pelvic lymph node and lung metastases. He received four courses of gemcitabine and cisplatin therapy. He underwent lung metastasectomy and radical cystoprostatectomy, with not only primary lesions but also metastatic lesions showing a complete response. New multiple lung metastases were revealed five months after adjuvant chemotherapy. On starting pembrolizumab therapy, the metastatic lesions are notably reduced in size. He is currently receiving pembrolizumab therapy, and no recurrence has been observed for over one year.

Mesotheliomas of the tunica vaginalis testis are rare malignant tumors that can present as a scrotal mass or hydrocele. These tumors are typically aggressive with high rates of recurrence and metastasis. Suspected risk factors for malignant mesothelioma include asbestos exposure, chronic inflammation, trauma, and persistent hydrocele. We report the case of a malignant epithelioid mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis testis that presented as a finding at hydrocelectomy and was ultimately treated with radical inguinal orchiectomy. This patient was on chronic immunosuppression therapy with tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil secondary to a kidney transplant but had none of the common risk factors for mesothelioma formation. To our knowledge, this is the first case describing a possible connection between chronic immunosuppression and mesothelioma of the tunica vaginalis. However, future studies are needed to investigate this association and discern whether this could have played a role in our patient or if his mesothelioma formation was coincidental.