Document d86q6z9ymypYQ5yr4VgZ3RE0
tuberculous granulomatous tissue but no tumorous changes'. Existence
of a primary epithelial tumor of the pleura was ruled out by this.
Discussion^
Primary tumors of the peritoneum belong to the biggest
rarities, particularly in their diffusely spreading form. Therefore
it had to be thought from the beginning of a combination of pulmo
nary asbestosis with a primary epithelial tumor of the peritoneum,
particularly with regard to close relation of deposition of asbesos
dust to tumors of the lungs and pleura. Thus it must be first deter
mined whether
^ accidental event here, or whether a causal
relationship between deposition of asbestos and the peritoneal tumor
can be proven, or at least can be made probable.
While it was hesitated in the past whether peritoneal
tumors originated from lymph-vessels or from epithelium of the mucose
today they are almost generally derived from the celomic epithelium
and preferably called, with Uarchand, malignant epithelial tumors
rather than synonymously endotheliomas,mesothelioms or malignant
peritoneal epitheliomas.Due to pluripotent abilities of the celomic
epithelium histological structure of these tumors is subject to very
big variety, both in an individual case and in the various obser
vations - quite analogous with primary epithelial tumors of the pleui
and pericardium - which is to be expected in embryologically iden
tical serous surfaces of an essentially identical structure /Prinz/.
Quite in agreement with the various potentials of differentiation
in tissue cultures of the pleural mesothelioma /Sano, Weiss and Gault
also in man occur sarcomatous forms of growth /Greer/, partly with
mucous-myxomatous transformation /Bhnid and Wright/, beside formation
of fissures and cavities and villous-papillary and polypous growth
/Fischer, Klein and Bare!/ whose individual components appear partly
predominantly and partly in motley mixture. Greer in 1950 estimated
the number of the true diffuse peritoneal sarcomas in the literature
to 15. Also the other forms of epithelial tumors in the abdominal
cavity must be substantially rarer than primary tumors of the pleura,
the number of which in autopsy material, approximately 1 jSo , is
already very small.
Villous-papillary and small-nodular parts of our
peritoneal tumor showed in part big similarity with nodules, and