HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Personal Folders Download to citation manager Author home page(s): René Prêtre Permission Requests Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Scheffel, H. Articles by Alkadhi, H. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Scheffel, H. Articles by Alkadhi, H. Related Collections Cardiac - other Great vessels

J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2008;135:949-950
© 2008 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Brief Communication

Primary intimal pulmonary artery sarcoma: A diagnostic challenge

^a Institute of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
^b Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
^c Institute of Surgical Pathology, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Received for publication November 9, 2007; accepted for publication November 12, 2007.

^_* Address for reprints: Hatem Alkadhi, MD, Institute of Diagnostic Radiology, Department of Medical Radiology, Rämistrasse 100, 8091 Zurich, Switzerland. (Email: hatem.alkadhi@usz.ch).

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Primary pulmonary artery sarcoma (PAS), which was first described by Mandelstamm in 1923,¹ is a rare entity that is often misdiagnosed as chronic pulmonary thromboembolism.² The differentiation of these 2 diseases with similar clinical presentations is fundamental for the initiation of adequate therapy, which completely differs between the 2 conditions.³ PAS often has a fatal outcome because of insidious intravascular tumor growth with extension into the distal pulmonary artery system. Surgery and adjacent irradiation or chemotherapy are necessary to optimize the survival time that ranges between 14 and 18 months.⁴ Computed tomography (CT) can serve as one component in the diagnostic workup of PAS by providing characteristic imaging features that favor a PAS diagnosis over that of a thromboembolism.⁵ We present the CT findings of a patient with primary intimal PAS of the pulmonary trunk along with the intraoperative images and histopathologic findings.

Clinical Summary

A 38-year-old female patient with recurrent atypical chest pain was admitted to the University Hospital Zurich. Her medical history was remarkable with regard to a long-standing pulmonary arterial hypertension. She had . . . [Full Text of this Article]