Aims: To report a case of paediatric malignant peritoneal mesothelioma (MPM) with evidence of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) translocation.
Methods and results: We describe a 10-year-old girl who presented with abdominal pain and progressive abdominal distension. She had no history of asbestos exposure. Histopathological, immunohistochemical and ultrastructural analyses were performed and showed a biphasic malignant mesothelioma. In addition, we also studied on a selected set of immunomarkers which may be the potential therapeutic molecular targets including ALK, c-kit (CD117), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2)/neu, as well as corresponding molecular analysis. Consequently, we identified ALK expression by immunohistochemistry, together with evidence of ALK translocation by fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) analysis.
Conclusions: Paediatric MPM is associated with ALK translocation in our case. The results may open up a new avenue for the study of molecular genesis of paediatric malignant mesothelioma in the future and help to determine whether patients MMs with ALK translocation would benefit from ALK inhibitor treatment.
Keywords: anaplastic lymphoma kinase; child; malignant peritoneal mesothelioma.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.