Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

CASE REPORT article

Front. Med.

Sec. Pulmonary Medicine

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1620403

Placental transmogrification of the lung: Two case reports and a literature review

Provisionally accepted
Hong-Yuan  ZhouHong-Yuan ZhouHong  LiHong LiYu-Jie  LuYu-Jie LuHeng-Ping  WuHeng-Ping WuYongzhen  LiYongzhen Li*
  • Zigong First People's Hospital, Zigong, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Background: Placental transmogrification of the lung (PTL) is an uncommon benign lung lesion characterized by the presence of immature mesenchymal clear cells and frequent cystic changes.We report two cases. The first case was a 51-year-old woman who presented with chest pain and a history of pulmonary nodule detected during examination for over one month. The second case was a 58-year-old man with a smoking history who presented with progressive dyspnea and cough for over one month, and was found to have an asymptomatic pulmonary lesion. Computed tomography revealed localized cystic lesions in the first case and bullae in the second. Histological examination showed papillary structures resembling placental villi, lined by cuboidal epithelium without atypia, with hyalinized stromal cores containing capillaries and lymphoplasmacytic infiltration.Conclusions: PTL exhibits placental-like architecture with CD10-positive stromal cells, suggesting it is a benign mesenchymal tumor rather than a form of emphysema.Pathological confirmation is essential, and surgical resection is the recommended treatment.

Keywords: placental transmogrification of the lung, Giant bullae, Papillary structures, mesenchymal tumor, CD10

Received: 01 May 2025; Accepted: 12 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Li, Lu, Wu and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Yongzhen Li, Zigong First People's Hospital, Zigong, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.