Hepatoid Pancoast tumor. A case report and review of the literature

A 48-year-old male patient presented with a Pancoast tumor of the right lung and a serum alpha-fetoprotein (alpha FP) at 39,000 ng/ml. Alpha-fetoprotein is a tumor marker found elevated in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), germ cell or stromal tumors of the ovary and nonseminomatous testicular cancer. Occasionally, this tumor marker may rise in non-neoplastic conditions such as cirrhosis and hepatitis and only exceptionally in rare cancers with hepatoid differentiation. We present our case report and review the English literature for alpha FP-producing lung carcinomas. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report in the literature of an alpha FP producing Pancoast tumor. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.