Metastatic adenocarcinoma in cerebral astrocytoma: clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study with review of the literature.

Metastatic spreading of carcinoma into a pre-existing cerebral glioma is extremely rare and only a few well-documented cases have been reported in the literature. Here we report a 53-year-old man who at the age 49 was first operated on for a frontal astrocytoma (WHO-grade II). This tumour was completely resected and no post-operative radio- or chemotherapy was applied. About five years later the patient presented again with a large partially cystic space-occupying lesion at the same site, which pre-operatively appeared as a recurrence of the astrocytoma. Histologically, however, this tumour proved to be a metastatic adenocarcinoma into a recurrent astrocytoma. Further clinical examinations revealed a bronchial carcinoma as the primary lesion responsible for this unusual metastatis. The clinical and neuropathological findings of this interesting case including immunohistochemistry are presented and discussed.