Unclassified Renal Cell Carcinoma With Medullary Phenotype Versus Renal Medullary Carcinoma: Lessons From Diagnosis in an Italian Man Found to Harbor Sickle Cell Trait

Medullary carcinoma is a rare malignant tumor of the kidney. It affects individuals of African descent and all cases reported show evidence of sickle cell trait. We reviewed an unusual carcinoma arising in a white man, the ninth in the literature. The tumor demonstrated features associated with renal medullary carcinoma, or unclassified renal cell carcinoma, medullary phenotype as recently described; the presence of sickle cell trait confirmed the diagnosis of medullary carcinoma. This case is helpful in the differential diagnosis with non-sickle cell associated "renal cell carcinoma, unclassified with medullary phenotype,"and study of this spectrum of tumors is ongoing. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.