Primary Pulmonary Artery Angiosarcoma

Han, Seung Baik; Kim, Jun Sig; Khi, Woong; Kim, Ji Hye; Lee, Kyoung Mi; Baek, Kwang Je

Abstract

A primary sarcoma of the pulmonary artery is a rare disease. The symptoms of the disease are nonspecific, so it is very difficult to get an exact diagnosis in an emegency situation. A 48-year-old man was admitted to our emergency center with the history of syncope. The patient had no symptoms of a chest problem. During the diagnostic work up, we found an increased density in the left upper lung field on the chest PA, which was the only diagnostic clue to the patient 's illness. A chest CT, a chest MRI, and other studies were done to diagnose the undelying cause of syncope. We found a large intraluminal mass in the pulmonary artery and anterior mediastinal lymph node enlargement. A firm tumor, which arose from the main pulmonary artery and caused a near total obstruction of the left main pulmonary artery, was found during operation, and a partial resection of the tumor mass was done. Histologic and immunohistochemical staining revealed the tumor to be poorly differentiated spindle cell sarcoma. We report the case of a pulmonary artery sarcoma patient, along with a brief review of related literature.