A case of metastatic pulmonary acinic cell tumor

Abstract

A 66-year-old woman was admitted for further examination of cough and a tumorous shadow on her chest X-ray film. Her chest X-ray and CT films showed a tumorous lesion in S3 segment of the right upper lobe. Right upper lobectomy was carried out because the intraoperative pathological diagnosis was carcinoma. Final pathological diagnosis was acinic cell tumor of the lung. Furthermore we found a tumor locating near the right parotid gland. The tumor was resected and its pathological findings showed the same histology as the tumor of the lung. We considered that the tumor of the lung was metastatic acinic cell tumor from the one which originated from an ectopic parotid gland. The patient is free of tumor 3 years after resection of both tumors. Acinic cell tumor clinically behaves as a low-grade malignancy, showing indolent growth pattern, but occasionally metastasize to other organs after several years. Diligent long-term follow-up is important to the patient with acinic cell tumors in multiple sites.