Transitional cell carcinoma of the prostate

Over a 10-year period, 670 prostatic carcinomas were diagnosed at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Hines, Ill. Sixteen were pathologically unusual, and 10 of these 16 were found to be transitional cell carcinoma. These lesions have definite clinical and pathologic differences from the common prostatic adenocarcinoma. Origin is in the large prostatic ducts, whose lining cells are of the transitional cell type. Urologists and pathologists, if aware of these lesions, should consider them in clinically unusual or pathologically atypical cases of prostatic carcinoma.