Primary carcinoma of the ureter--a 24-year-study from south India

This study from India has envisaged a characterization of primary carcinomas of the ureter using a review of all available Indian literature over a period of 32 years. The character of the tumor in the Indian patients was clinically; pain, abdominal lump and haematuria with most neoplasms being single, situated in the ureteric pelvis and such neoplasms being squamous cell in type. The others were transitional cell carcinomas. Similar ureteric neoplasms reported from Western literature showed that the reporting authors gave the predominant complaint as haematuria alone, the neoplasm being usually multicentric and histologically mainly transitional cell carcinoma. Although a significant follow up could not be achieved among the 101 Indian patients, Western authors found that muscle invasion was the single most important histologically related point to endanger a good progress. The possible pathogenesis that could be thought of appears to be related to stasis.