Discussion
Diagnosis With Brief Discussion
- Diagnosis
- Pulmonary artery sarcoma
- Radiologic Findings
- Fig 1. Plain chest radiography show mild bulging opacity at right hilum, with borderline cardiomegaly.
Fig 2-3. Contrast-enhanced chest CT images show extensive filling defect in pulmonary trunk and bilateral main pulmonary arteries. Internal calcifications are noted in the filling defect.
- Brief Review
- Pulmonary artery sarcoma is an extremely rare malignancy arising from the intimal layer of the pulmonary artery. Common symptoms include dyspnea, cough, hemoptysis, and weight loss. Pulmonary artery sarcoma frequently misdiagnosed as chronic pulmonary thromboembolism. CT and PET-CT are useful tools for the diagnosis. Contrast-enhanced CT can show eccentric filling defects or complete occlusion of proximal pulmonary arteries. The expansion of involved arteries and extraluminal extension of tumor can be observed. FDG-PET may be useful in differentiating pulmonary thromboembolism and pulmonary artery sarcoma, since bland thrombi do not uptake FDG, while pulmonary artery sarcoma show FDG uptake. Metastasis can occur in the lung and other organs. Usually, the prognosis of pulmonary artery sarcoma is poor. Surgical resection of tumor can reduce clinical symptoms and improves the survival of patients.

- References
- 1. Chong S, Kim T, Kim B et al. Pulmonary artery sarcoma mimicking Pulmonary thromboembolism: Integrated FDG PET/CT. AJR Am J Roentgenol 2007;188(6):1691-1693.
2. Ito K, Kubota K, Morooka M et al. Diagnostic usefulness of 18F0FDG PET/CT in the differentiation of pulmonary artery sarcoma and pulmonary embolism. Ann Nucl Med. 2009;23(7):671-676.
- Keywords