Malignant rhabdoid tumor—The great mimicker: Two case reports

Abstract

Malignant rhabdoid tumors (MRT) represent a very rare group of tumors in infants that have an aggressive clinical behavior, are refractory to therapy, and have a high mortality rate. We present two cases that demonstrate the importance of early diagnosis for further treatment. The first case was a 4 and a half month old boy that presented with an enlarged liver and was treated as hepatoblastoma with metastatic changes in the lung parenchyma after the diagnosis. The second case was a female neonate presenting with hardening on the right side of the abdomen which was treated as MRT of the liver after radiological and clinical evaluation. In both cases, the initial histopathologic diagnosis was hepatoblastoma, but later analyses confirmed the diagnosis of MRT. From our experience, imaging findings can be a valuable tool in directing further evaluation since even histopathologic differentiation from the small cell undifferentiated hepatoblastoma is a real challenge.

Keywords

• Malignant rhabdoid tumor
• Liver
• Infant