Pleuropulmonary blastoma in a 3-year-old boy: A case study

Pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) is a very aggressive and rare type of cancer that occurs mainly in children; however, it may also affect adults. PPB originates from the lung or the pleural cavity, but its cause is still unknown. PPB has four different subtypes based on whether it involves cysts and/or cancerous nodules, as well as considering the age at diagnosis and prognosis. Medical imaging plays an important role in the diagnosis of PPB to quantify the extent of metastasis of the tumour, such as in type II and type III, and to titrate the treatment strategy accordingly. In this paper, the case of a deceased 3-year-old boy, who was diagnosed with type II and III PPB, is presented, including an analysis on related medical images involving both ionising (chest X-ray and computed tomography) and non-ionising techniques (ultrasound), as well as the treatments that the child underwent. The patient received surgical resection of the tumour, followed by chemotherapy; however, local tumour relapse occurred, a second resection was not possible, and the relapsed tumour did not respond to chemotherapy leading to the death of the child.