Fluorine-18 fluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography in a case of suspected primary pericardial mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Fluorine-18 fluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography in a case of suspected primary pericardial mesothelioma, by R. Senthil, A. Bhattacharya, M.K. Rohit, et al (Indian Journal of Nuclear Medicine, 2012).

The study

• Authors: R. Senthil, A. Bhattacharya, M.K. Rohit, B.R. Mittal
• Journal: Indian Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• Published: 2012;27(3):210
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

In plain English

This letter to the editor, from doctors in Chandigarh, India, described one patient: a 26-year-old male who had smoked for 10 years and had had shortness of breath for one year. There was no history suggestive of asbestos exposure. A chest X-ray showed an enlarged heart, and echocardiography showed diffuse thickening of the pericardium, the sac around the heart. A fine needle sample from the thickening was read as adenocarcinoma, so cancer that had spread from an unknown site was suspected. An FDG PET/CT scan, done to look for that original cancer, showed intense uptake in a soft-tissue lesion involving the entire pericardium. It showed no abnormal thickening or uptake in the pleura and no abnormal uptake elsewhere in the body to suggest a primary site. A primary tumor of the pericardium, possibly primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma, was therefore suspected. The patient died before the diagnosis was confirmed. The authors concluded that the absence of abnormal uptake at distant sites on this scan reinforces the possibility of primary pericardial mesothelioma in such cases.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Case report published as a letter to the editor
• Who was studied: One 26-year-old male patient who had smoked for 10 years and had had shortness of breath for 1 year; authors at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India
• Exposure: No asbestos exposure: the article reports no history suggestive of asbestos exposure. The article is about FDG PET/CT imaging, not about an exposure.
• Main results:
  • Echocardiography showed diffuse thickening of the pericardium
  • Fine needle aspiration cytology from the pericardial thickening was read as adenocarcinoma
  • FDG PET/CT showed intense FDG uptake in a heterogeneously enhancing soft-tissue lesion involving the entire pericardium
  • No abnormal thickening or FDG uptake was seen in the pleura
  • No abnormal FDG uptake was seen elsewhere in the body to suggest a primary site
  • Primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma was suspected, but the patient died before the diagnosis was confirmed
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the absence of abnormal uptake at a distant site on FDG PET/CT reinforces the possibility of primary pericardial mesothelioma in such cases

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pericardial Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Fluoro deoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computerized tomography in primary staging and response assessment of a rare case of primary pleural synovial sarcoma — C.N. Harisankar, J. John, et al. (2015)
• 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography fused imaging in malignant mesothelioma patients: looking from outside is not enough — E. Roca, S. Laroumagne, et al. (2013)
• Randomised controlled trial to compare the diagnostic yield of positron emission tomography CT (PET-CT) TARGETed pleural biopsy versus CT-guided pleural biopsy in suspected pleural malignancy (TARGET trial) — D. de Fonseka, W. Underwood, et al. (2018)
• High performance of F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography and contrast-enhanced CT in a rapid outpatient diagnostic program for patients with suspected lung cancer — P. Brocken, H.F. van der Heijden, et al. (2014)
• Clinical value of fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography in differentiation of malignant mesothelioma from asbestos-related benign pleural disease: an observational pilot study — H. Yildirim, M. Metintas, et al. (2009)
• The role of fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography in differentiating between benign and malignant adrenal lesions — P. Ozcan Kara, T. Kara, et al. (2011)

Browse more research in Indian Journal of Nuclear Medicine, or return to medical research.