Case Report: Penile Squamous Cell Carcinoma Associated With Severe Hypercalcemia and High Levels of Parathyroid Hormone-related Peptide Expressed in Metastatic Skin Tissue

Ricardo Enrique Barcia; María Julia Martín; Alejo Pérez de la Hoz; María de Los Ángeles Juárez; Claudia Gentili

doi:10.1016/j.urology.2018.07.019

Case Report: Penile Squamous Cell Carcinoma Associated With Severe Hypercalcemia and High Levels of Parathyroid Hormone-related Peptide Expressed in Metastatic Skin Tissue

Urology. 2018 Oct:120:e11-e12. doi: 10.1016/j.urology.2018.07.019. Epub 2018 Jul 25.

Authors

Ricardo Enrique Barcia¹, María Julia Martín², Alejo Pérez de la Hoz¹, María de Los Ángeles Juárez³, Claudia Gentili⁴

Affiliations

¹ VI Cátedra de Medicina Interna, Hospital de Clínicas José de San Martín, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
² Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas y Biomédicas del Sur (INBIOSUR), Dept. Biología Bioquímica y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional del Sur-CONICET, Bahía Blanca, Argentina.
³ Departamento de Patología, Hospital de Clínicas José de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁴ Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas y Biomédicas del Sur (INBIOSUR), Dept. Biología Bioquímica y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional del Sur-CONICET, Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Electronic address: cgentili@criba.edu.ar.

PMID: 30055219
DOI: 10.1016/j.urology.2018.07.019

Abstract

It is known that high levels of parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) correlate with a bad prognostic in malignancies. Here we present a patient with advanced penile cancer (PC) without antecedents of human papillomavirus infections and bone metastases but with severe hypercalcemia. By quantitative polymerase chain reaction, we observed high levels of PTHrP messenger RNA in metastatic cutaneous tissue. This is the first reported case in Argentina of hypercalcemia induced by PTHrP in human PC. Furthermore, the association of PTHrP and this disease through quantitative polymerase chain reaction allows us to consider this molecular technique as a novel tool for diagnosis in patients with PC.