Inflammatory Pseudotumor of the Anterior Mediastinum Appearing as a Thymic Malignancy: Report of a Case

Go Kanazawa, Yasushi Sakamaki, Tomofumi Oda

Department of Chest Surgery, Osaka Police Hospital, Osaka, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/crcm.2014.36079                

Abstract

We treated a patient with inflammatory pseudotumor of the mediastinum that exhibited high uptake of fluorodeoxyglucose on positron emission tomography. A 69-year-old male patient was diagnosed with a mass measuring 70 mm in diameter in the anterior mediastinum as revealed by computed tomography. The lesion showed strong uptake of 18-fluorine fluorodeoxyglucose with a maximum standardized uptake value of 10.24 on positron emission tomography, which was suggestive of a thymic malignancy. Complete resection of the mass was achieved, and the postoperative pathological examination confirmed an inflammatory pseudotumor of the mediastinum arising in a perithymic lymph node. Despite its rarity, inflammatory pseudotumor should be taken into consideration when diagnosing a mass lesion with characteristics suggestive of thymic neoplasm on fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computed tomography.

Keywords

Inflammatory Pseudotumor, Mediastinum, Thymoma, Thymic Carcinoma, 18-Fluorine Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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