One Patient With 4 Different Primary Cancers: A Case Report

Abstract

Background: The development of medicine, especially in oncology, has been helping prolong the cancer patients' survival, but also leads to increasing the possibility of getting multiple cancers. However, the possibility of getting 4 primary cancers in 4 different sites is extremely rare.

Case presentation: A 63-year-old female patient was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2018, and then with right colon cancer in 2019. In 2020, this patient was diagnosed with left renal pelvis cancer, and most recently, in April 2022, she was hospitalized with bladder cancer diagnosis. Thanks to being closely and regularly followed-up, her malignancies had been detected early and treated suitably. Her health remains stable now and she is under following-up.

Conclusion: Even though developing another primary cancer in a cancer survivor is not uncommon now and has the tendency to increase, a patient having 4 primary cancers in 4 different sites is still extremely rare and should be noticed, further followed up and investigated. Cancer patients and survivors need to be followed-up regularly, to early detect not only the progression or recurrence but also the second cancer (if it exists), to get timely and suitable treatment.

Keywords: Multiple primary cancers; cancer survivor; quadruple cancers.

Figure 1.

Renal pelvis cancer (FDG 6.5) on PET-CT.

Figure 2.

Diagram of disease progression.

Figure 3.

Histopathological image of thyroid cancer.

Figure 4.

Histopathological image of colon cancer.

Figure 5.

Histopathological image of left renal pelvic cancer.

Figure 6.

Histopathological image of bladder cancer.