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A large presacral tailgut cyst with a carcinoid tumor in a male: report of a case

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Abstract

Tailgut cysts are developmental hamartomas found in the presacral space. They are usually detected incidentally during physical examinations or imaging studies. However, they may cause symptoms due to compression of nearby organs. Due to their potential malignant transformation, surgical resection is warranted, while routine biopsy is considered controversial because of the concern about infection of the tailgut cyst and needle-track implantation of malignant cells. The co-existence of a carcinoid in a tailgut cyst is extremely rare. Only 16 cases have been reported previously, the vast majority of which were found in females. We herein present the case of a carcinoid in a tailgut cyst found in a male patient, discuss the potential pathogenesis of tailgut carcinoids, and underline the fact that their previous consideration of the condition as a female-restricted entity should be rejected.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ms. Eugenia Bolbasis for the linguistic review of the manuscript, and Dr. Andreas Manios for his contributions in preparing the figures.

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgical Oncology, Heraklion University Hospital, P.O. Box 1352, 71110, Heraklion, Greece

    Vasileios Charalampakis, Dimitrios Stamatiou, Manousos Christodoulakis, Maria Kafousi, Eelco de Bree & John Melissas

  2. Department of Radiology, Heraklion University Hospital, P.O. Box 1352, 71110, Heraklion, Greece

    Evangelia Chryssou

Authors
  1. Vasileios Charalampakis
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  2. Dimitrios Stamatiou
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  3. Manousos Christodoulakis
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  4. Maria Kafousi
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  5. Evangelia Chryssou
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  6. Eelco de Bree
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  7. John Melissas
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Correspondence to Vasileios Charalampakis.

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Charalampakis, V., Stamatiou, D., Christodoulakis, M. et al. A large presacral tailgut cyst with a carcinoid tumor in a male: report of a case. Surg Today 44, 961–966 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-012-0482-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00595-012-0482-4

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