Ureterocele with embedded stone suggesting a diagnosis of bladder tumor: beware of the diagnostic trap! (case report and literature review)

Description

Idriss Ziani, Ahmed Ibrahimi, and Yassine Nouini reported a diagnostic near-miss in 2024. A forty-seven-year-old patient arrived with irritative urinary symptoms and blood in the urine, a presentation that points worryingly toward bladder cancer. Imaging obliged the suspicion, apparently showing a bladder tumor with a stone inside it, a combination that could easily have carried the patient toward cancer surgery.

A ureterocele is a congenital ballooning of the ureter's final segment inside the bladder, and with a stone embedded in it, the swelling can impersonate a tumor remarkably well. Direct inspection by cystoscopy corrected the diagnosis before any radical step. Treatment was then endoscopic and modest: the ureterocele was opened endoscopically and the trapped stone fragmented with a laser. The authors pair the case with a literature review to warn clinicians to assemble several lines of evidence before committing to a bladder tumor diagnosis.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC11928304