Mediastinal lipomas are extremely rare, so there are few reported cases. We report a postmortem case of this rare intrathoracic lipoma in a 79-year old female cadaver. The gross features of the tumor and histopathological findings confirmed the diagnosis of a massive simple benign lipoma. To our knowledge, this is the first case to be reported at such an advanced age and the second postmortem c...

Intrathoracic desmoid tumours are rare soft-tissue neoplasms arising from fascial or musculo-aponeurotic structures, accounting for less than 0.03% of all neoplasms. Most cases in fact represent intrathoracic extension of chest wall tumours. This case report describes the largest recorded true intrathoracic desmoid tumour without mediastinal or chest wall invasion. The tumour was completely exc...

The current literature contains numerous reports on the importance of the mediastinal lymph nodes in the diagnosis and prognosis of pulmonary neoplasms. We recently described a technique by which the mediastinal contents could be explored directly with little risk (Stemmer, Calvin, Chandor, and Connolly, 1965). Figure 1 illustrates the operative technique. An oblique incision is made just later...

BACKGROUND Paraganglioma is a rare but highly vascular tumor of the anterior mediastinum. Surgical resection is a challenge owing to the close proximity to vital structures including the heart, trachea and great vessels. Preoperative embolization has been reported once to facilitate surgical treatment. CASE PRESENTATION We report a case of anterior mediastinal paraganglioma that was embolized...

Neurogenic tumors are the most common type of mediastinal tumor and constitute the majority of neoplasms of the posterior mediastinum. Schwannomas originating from the intrathoracic vagus nerve are extremely rare. The present study describes the case of a 58-year-old man with a large vagal schwannoma in the left superior mediastinum. A large tumor with a round shape was identified in the left s...

Lymphoblastic lymphomas are neoplasms of immature or precursor lymphoid cells with no or limited bone marrow involvement, whose clinical presentation varies according to the immunophenotype. While mediastinal involvement is predominant in T-lymphoblastic lymphomas, B-lymphoblastic lymphomas frequently involve nodal sites. Extranodal presentation of B-lymphoblastic lymphomas is extremely rare. W...

that occurs almost exclusively in young children with or without various forms of congenital heart disease (1). Pulmonary vein stenosis in the adults is very rare, and the small number of reported cases has often been associated with mediastinal processes such as neoplasms or fibrosing mediastinitis (2, 3). Recently, stenosis has appeared as a complication of radiofrequency ablation procedures ...

Radiotherapy, an established treatment for local and regional control in neoplastic disease, may have several acute, subacute and chronic side effects. One of the main concerns about mediastinal radiotherapy is the occurrence of long-term cardiovascular complications after oncological treatment. This is an important issue--especially for thoracic neoplasms with long-term survival, such as breas...

Leukemic cells from 29 cases of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), studied for T and B cell markers by the use of sheep erythrocyte rosetting and surface immunoglobulin determinations, were examined by electron microscopy. The majority of patients (76%) were found to have non-T, non-B neoplasms composed predominantly of relatively small, inactive-appearing cells with frequent nuclear folds. T ce...

OBJECTIVE To assess the factors that may determine the effectiveness of transbronchial needle aspiration through a flexible bronchoscope in the diagnosis of diseased mediastinal lymph nodes in patients with lung or extrapulmonary tumors. METHODS Prospective study carried out at 2 hospitals between 1998 and 2004 that included all transbronchial needle aspirations performed on patients who had ...