Case report of a serous endometrial carcinoma metastasizing to the brain

Abstract

Background: Endometrial carcinoma (EC) is a rare cause of central nervous system metastases, with only 115 cases reported in the literature. There have only been 4 cases reported in the literature for the serous carcinoma subtype. This case study describes a new case of serous carcinoma metastasizing to the brain and demonstrates some of the potential characteristics of this subset. Case: A 77 year old female presented to the emergency department with a 2 week history of progressive left sided weakness and speech difficulties, and a known history of EC diagnosed approximately 3 years earlier. Imaging showed a right temporoparietal tumour. She underwent debulking of this tumour and was found to have a metastasis from her previously known serous carcinoma. Results: In comparing the serous subtype to the 115 known cases, many characteristics show similar patterns to EC as a whole; there could be a predominance to infratentorial lesions with the serous subtype, as 2/4 known metastases were cerebellar compared to only 25% of all endometrial carcinomas. Conclusions: There are possibly different characteristics of metastasizing of various EC subtypes. Before any conclusions can be drawn about the characteristics of any subtype, more data needs to be available for accurate interpretation.