Cross-sectional echocardiographic characterization of atelectatic lung segments. Differentiation from extracardiac tumors.

This report describes a unique series of patients who, during routine cross-sectional echocardiographic examination, were each noted to have a large echo-dense extracardiac mass adherent to the lateral aspect of the left ventricle. While this echo-dense mass was considered initially to represent an extracardiac tumor, this mass was shown subsequently to be an atelectatic segment of the left lower lobe of the lung. The salient echocardiographic findings that were considered to be helpful in terms of differentiating these adherent pulmonary atelectatic lung segments were that the lung segments always occurred in the presence of a moderate to large left pleural effusion; in real-time examination, the atelectatic lung masses generally appeared solid, as opposed to cystic, with a characteristic brightly reflective ground-glass appearance; there was never any evidence of extrinsic compression of the heart by the lung mass.