AccScience Publishing / Bladder / Online First / DOI: 10.14440/bladder.2024.0064
CASE SERIES

Incidental paraganglioma of the urinary bladder: A case series highlighting a rare entity and a urologist’s nightmare

Yassir Mehmood1 Rahul Gupta1* Arti Mahajan2 Yaser Rahman3 Kshitij Gupta4
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1 Department of Urology and Renal Transplant, Government Medical College, Jammu 180001, Jammu and Kashmir, India
2 Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Government Medical College, Jammu 180001, Jammu and Kashmir, India
3 Department of Urology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jammu 184120, Jammu and Kashmir, India
4 Intern Department of Surgery, Acharya Shri Chander College of Medical Sciences and Hospital, Jammu 180017, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Submitted: 18 November 2024 | Revised: 27 February 2025 | Accepted: 25 April 2025 | Published: 24 June 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Background: Pheochromocytomas originate from chromaffin cells of the adrenal medulla, resulting in excessive production of catecholamines and bizarre clinical symptoms. An extra-adrenal pheochromocytoma is called a paraganglioma. Urinary bladder paraganglioma represents an uncommon tumor that accounts for <0.05% of all bladder tumors. Case presentation: Presented here are three cases of incidental urinary bladder paraganglioma, all having hematuria as the primary symptom. During transurethral resection of bladder tumor, blood pressure fluctuated intensely with profuse bleeding, leading to the abandonment of the procedure. The patients were later diagnosed as having paraganglioma, and then, they were subjected to systemic evaluation and definitive treatment. Conclusion: Although bladder paraganglioma is a rare condition, it should be strongly suspected if a patient who has no definitive symptoms of the disease developed a sudden hemodynamic change at the very start of the procedure.

Keywords
Pheochromocytoma
Urinary bladder tumor
Chromaffin cell tumor
Hematuria
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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