Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Urinary bladder xanthoma: a report of 2 rare cases highlighted with anti-CD68 antibody
  1. W I Al-Daraji1,
  2. M Varghese2,
  3. E A Husain3,
  4. A Abellaoui4,
  5. V Kumar5
  1. 1Department of Histopathology, Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, UK
  2. 2Department of Histopathology, Sheffield University Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, UK
  3. 3Department of Pathology, Harold Wood Hospital, London, UK
  4. 4Department of Surgery, Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, UK
  5. 5Department of Urology, Sheffield University Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Sheffield, UK
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr W I Al-Daraji
 Histopathology Department, Darent Valley Hospital, Dartford, Kent DA2 8DA, UK; waldaraji{at}aol.com

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Xanthomata are non-neoplastic, reactive tumour like processes, usually arising in response to lipid profile disturbances. They represent a localised collection of tissue histiocytes containing lipid (foamy macrophages).1 Xanthomata occur more frequently in the skin, tendons, subcutaneous tissue and gastrointestinal tract, but, unlike them, urinary bladder xanthoma (UBX) appears to be a rare condition, with only 12 cases (including our two cases) reported in the Japanese and English literature.2–4 It is believed that xanthomata are reactive proliferations of histiocytes secondary to alterations in the lipid serum. Because xanthoma is one of the presentations of hyperlipidaemia, all patients, irrespective of the site, should be investigated for an underlying lipid disorder.1 However, only 50% of patients with UBX have hyperlipidaemia. Xanthoma may occur in either primary hyperlipidaemia, or secondary hyperlipidaemia, such as in diabetes mellitus. Occasionally, xanthomata occur in normolipidaemic states. Interestingly, xanthomata can occur as part of many tumour or inflammatory processes, and be related to trauma or surgery, as has been hypothesised for stomach xanthoma.5 The latter was probably due to disturbances in lipid metabolism in …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Competing interests: None declared.