Chest
Clinical Investigations: OncologyPulmonary Artery Sarcoma: Clinical Features
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
We reviewed retrospectively the clinical records of all patients that we could identify through a computer-assisted search of all medical records with a diagnosis of pulmonary artery sarcoma or pulmonary artery tumor seen at the Mayo Clinic. The diagnosis could have been entered in the medical record as surgical diagnosis, a pathologic diagnosis, or a medical diagnosis. We excluded from this review cases of primary malignancies elsewhere that metastasized to the pulmonary vascular tree and
Results
We identified nine patients in a 30-year period from 1963 to 1993 (Table 1). Five were male, and the average age was 55 years. The presenting symptoms were similar in all and not dissimilar from patients with other pulmonary vascular disease; these included dyspnea, chest pain, cough, and hemoptysis (Table 2). Seven of the nine patients were originally thought to have subacute episodes of pulmonary embolism. Two were presumptively thought to have bronchogenic carcinoma as the cause of their
Discussion
In recent years, chest physicians have become more aggressive in the diagnosis and therapy of pulmonary vascular disease; for example, thoracotomy and thromboendarterectomy have become more common for pulmonary hypertension secondary to chronic pulmonary thromboembolism.4 In view of this trend, it is important to consider the full range of pulmonary vascular disorders, including the clinical and pathologic presentation of tumors of the pulmonary artery. Primary neoplasms arising in systemic
Addendum
Since submission of our article, another case of pulmonary artery sarcoma has been reported in the literature.50 This case reports that clubbing can occur in association with pulmonary artery sarcoma.
References (50)
- et al.
Pulmonary artery sarcoma: diagnosis and postoperative follow-up with gadolinium-diethyle-netriamine pentaacetic acid-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging
Mayo Clin Proc
(1995) - et al.
Primary pulmonary artery sarcoma: a method of resection
Chest
(1990) - et al.
Chondrosarcoma of the pulmonary artery
Beitr Path
(1977) - et al.
Primary sarcoma of the pulmonary trunk and/or right or left main pulmonary artery: a rare cause of obstruction to right ventricular outflow
Am J Med
(1977) - et al.
Sarcoma of the pulmonary artery with metastases to pancreas and adrenal glands
Chest
(1974) - et al.
Primary leiomyosarcoma of the pulmonary artery
Am J Cardiol
(1974) - et al.
Leiomyosarcoma of the pulmonary artery diagnosed preoperatively by angiocardiography
J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg
(1976) - et al.
Primary intimal sarcoma of the pulmonary trunk simulating pulmonary embolism
Am Heart J
(1993) - et al.
Fibromyxosarcoma of the pulmonary artery associated with syncope, intractable heart failure, polycythemia, and thrombocytopenia
Am J Cardiol
(1964) Primary pulmonary artery sarcoma—a report of two cases, with special emphasis on the diagnostic problems
Clin Radiol
(1990)
Primary sarcoma of the pulmonary artery
J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg
Long-term palliation of pulmonary artery sarcoma by radical excision and adjuvant therapy
Ann Thorac Surg
Primary pulmonary artery sarcoma: modern diagnostic imaging methods and successful surgical treatment
J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg
Primary sarcoma of the pulmonary trunk: successful surgical intervention and prolonged survival
Clin Cardiol
Experience and results with 150 pulmonary thromboendartereetomy operations over a 29-month period
J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg
Preoperative angiographic diagnosis of primary sarcoma of the pulmonary artery
Circulation
Polypoid sarcoma of the pulmonary trunk: analysis of the literature and report of a case with leptomeric organelles and ultrastructural features of rhabdomyosarcoma
Cancer
Pulmonary artery sarcomas
Arch Pathol Lab Med
Leiomyosarcoma of the pulmonary artery
Virchows Arch A Path Anat Histol
Pulmonary artery trunk sarcoma: a clinicopathologic ultrastructural, and immunohistochemical study of four cases
Mod Pathol
Sarcoma of the pulmonary artery: report of four cases with electron microscopic and immunohistochemical examinations
Virchows Arch
Ante mortem diagnosis of primary leiomyosarcoma of the pulmonary artery
Respiration
Sarcoma of the pulmonary artery
Thorax
Primary intimal sarcoma of the pulmonary artery
Johns Hopkins Med J
Primary pulmonary artery sarcoma: intra-operative similarity to pulmonary embolus
Postgrad Med J
Cited by (0)
Supported by the Mayo Foundation, Rochester, Minn. The authors have no financial interest in any organization or entity involving this manuscript.
revision accepted July 11.