Primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma presenting as constrictive pericarditis with an atypical imaging appearance: a case description

Our plain-English summary of Primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma presenting as constrictive pericarditis with an atypical imaging appearance: a case description, by Y. Chen, X. Ren, X. Duan, et al (Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery, 2023).

The study

• Authors: Y. Chen, X. Ren, X. Duan, B. Lu
• Journal: Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery
• Published: 2023;13(3):2013-2020
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

In plain English

This article is a case report, published as a letter to the editor, from a hospital in Beijing. It described a 50-year-old woman with primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining around the heart. The article stated she had no history of asbestos or radiation exposure. Doctors at other hospitals first suspected tuberculous pericarditis and gave antituberculosis treatment, but she did not respond well. Fluid repeatedly drained from around her heart showed no acid-fast bacilli (the germs tested for in tuberculosis) and no tumor cells. Cardiac CT showed pericardial thickening without calcification and no definite mass. Cardiac MRI findings were consistent with constrictive pericarditis, a stiffened heart lining. PET-CT showed increased uptake across the pericardium, suggesting a possible cancer whose nature could not be determined. The diagnosis, epithelioid mesothelioma, was made only after surgery to remove the pericardium. She received cis-platinum-based chemotherapy for 4 months and died of congestive heart failure 17 months after her symptoms began. The authors concluded that this cancer should be considered when constrictive pericarditis has no known cause.

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 50-year-old woman seen at Fuwai Hospital, Beijing, China; dates of care not given
• Exposure: the article states the patient had no history of asbestos or radiation exposure; no fiber type or occupation is described
• Main results:
  • The patient was first suspected at other hospitals of having tuberculous pericarditis and treated for it, but did not respond well
  • Pericardial fluid testing found no acid-fast bacilli or tumor cells
  • Cardiac CT showed pericardial thickening and enhancement with no calcification and no definite mass
  • Cardiac MRI findings were consistent with constrictive pericarditis
  • PET-CT showed diffuse increased FDG uptake in the pericardium (SUV 4.3–6.7); a malignancy was considered, but its nature could not be determined
  • Pathology after pericardiectomy showed epithelioid mesothelioma
  • The patient received postoperative chemotherapy for 4 months and died of congestive heart failure 17 months after symptom onset
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the possibility of primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma should be considered when diagnosing constrictive pericarditis of unknown cause

Topics

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

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• Primary Malignant Pericardial Mesothelioma Manifesting as Constrictive Pericarditis with Atypical Imaging Features: A Case Report — E. Shahverdi, G. Santhosh Kumar, et al. (2026)
• Malignant primary pericardial mesothelioma presenting as effusive constrictive pericarditis: a case report study — A. Savarrakhsh, A. Vakilpour, et al. (2021)
• A case report of malignant primary pericardial mesothelioma with atypical imaging appearance: multimodality imaging with histopathological correlation — A. Banišauskaitė, A. Jankauskas, et al. (2020)
• Pericardial Mesothelioma Presenting as Constrictive Pericarditis — B. Shrestha, R. Handa, et al. (2022)
• Primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma - a rare cause of pericardial effusion and consecutive constrictive pericarditis: a case report — T. Butz, L. Faber, et al. (2009)
• Constrictive Pericarditis Caused by Primary Pericardial Mesothelioma: A Case Series — T.A. Meijs, J.F. Heidendael, et al. (2024)

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