Renal Metachronous Metastasis from Adenocarcinoma of the Rectum: A Case Report and Review

Aim: Colorectal cancer metastasis to the kidney is extremely rare and the diagnosis of metastatic kidney tumor is challenging due to occasionally mimic primary renal tumors in imaging studies. We present a case of rectal cancer metastasis to the kidney and review the relevant literatures.

Present of Case: A 51-year-old man was referred to our department due to a left renal tumor with size of approximately 3 cm in diameter detected by computed tomography (CT) during the follow-up after high anterior resection of the rectum for a rectal cancer and postoperative chemotherapy 5 years ago. Three years later after the initial treatments he had a metastasis in the left lung and underwent partial resection of the left lower lobe of the lung. Percutaneous renal tumor biopsies were conducted due to atypical renal tumor on the imaging diagnosis, and resulted in histologically tubular adenocarcinoma, representing rectal cancer metastasis. The imaging diagnosis showed no other metastasis. Therefore, he underwent left laparoscopic nephrectomy without any complications. Unfortunately, he had metastases of the lungs and died of cancer progression 19 months after the nephrectomy.

Conclusions: There is the possibility of metastatic tumor to the kidney in patients with colorectal cancer when renal mass is found during routine follow-up. The prognosis seems to be poor in even undergoing surgical treatment such as nephrectomy like our case.