Primary sarcomatoid malignant pericardial mesothelioma

Our plain-English summary of Primary sarcomatoid malignant pericardial mesothelioma, by D. Jiang, M. Kong, J. Li, et al (Internal Medicine, 2013).

The study

• Authors: D. Jiang, M. Kong, J. Li, J. Qian
• Journal: Internal Medicine
• Published: 2013;52(1):157-8
• Type of article: Case report
• Cited by: 5 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

This illustrated case report described a 39-year-old man in China with primary sarcomatoid malignant mesothelioma of the pericardium. He was admitted with a 10-month history of shortness of breath and chest distress on exertion. Echocardiography showed a pericardial mass and effusion. Computed tomography showed a thickened pericardium, effusion, and a large pericardial mass encompassing the left pulmonary artery and compressing the left and right pulmonary arteries. A positron emission tomography scan was positive along the pericardium. A pericardial biopsy obtained by video-assisted thoracic surgery confirmed sarcomatoid malignant mesothelioma. Immunohistochemical staining was positive for calretinin, vimentin and CD34 and negative for EMA, SMA, desmin and S100 protein. Because of the tumor's sensitive location and poor prognosis, the patient received no radiation treatment or chemotherapy. His cough and shortness of breath worsened, and repeat CT showed tumor progression. He died of cardiac failure 11 months after diagnosis. The authors noted that primary malignant pericardial mesothelioma is extremely rare, with an incidence of 0.0022% in an autopsy series of 500,000 cases, and that the sarcomatoid type is very rare. They also noted that diagnosis is difficult and that most patients die within one year of diagnosis. The report did not mention asbestos exposure or the patient's occupational history.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This was a short case report, published as an illustrated 'picture' article, about one patient in China. A 39-year-old man came to the hospital after 10 months of shortness of breath and chest discomfort on exertion. Scans showed a thickened pericardium (the sac around the heart), fluid, and a large mass around the left pulmonary artery that was pressing on the left and right pulmonary arteries. A PET scan was positive along the pericardium. A biopsy taken during video-assisted chest surgery confirmed sarcomatoid malignant mesothelioma. Tissue staining was positive for calretinin, vimentin and CD34 and negative for EMA, SMA, desmin and S100 protein. Because of the tumor's sensitive location and poor outlook, he received no radiation or chemotherapy. His cough and breathlessness worsened, the tumor grew, and he died of cardiac failure 11 months after diagnosis. The report did not mention asbestos or describe the man's work or exposure history. Its background statements about how rare this cancer is and how it usually behaves came from earlier published studies, not from this case.

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 (single patient, 'Pictures in Clinical Medicine' article)
• Who was studied: one 39-year-old man admitted to a hospital in China (authors from Zhejiang University and Guangdong General Hospital) with a 10-month history of shortness of breath and chest distress on exertion
• Main results:
  • CT showed a thickened pericardium, effusion and a large pericardial mass encompassing the left pulmonary artery and compressing the left and right pulmonary arteries
  • A pericardial biopsy using video-assisted thoracic surgery confirmed sarcomatoid malignant mesothelioma
  • Immunohistochemical staining was positive for calretinin, vimentin and CD34
  • Staining was negative for EMA, SMA, desmin and S100 protein
  • The patient received no radiation treatment or chemotherapy because of the tumor's sensitive location and poor prognosis
  • Symptoms worsened, repeat CT showed tumor progression, and the patient died of cardiac failure 11 months after diagnosis

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Sarcomatoid, Pericardial Mesothelioma, Malignant Mesothelioma, Pericardium, Pericardial, Biopsy, Thoracic Surgery, Immunohistochemistry.

Related studies

• Primary sarcomatoid malignant mesothelioma of the pericardium — T. Terada (2012)
• Primary pericardial tumors — C.S. Restrepo, D. Vargas, et al. (2013)
• Neoplastic Pericardial Disease — J.J. Maleszewski, N.S. Anavekar (2017)
• A case of primary pericardial mesothelioma detected by 18F-FDG PET/CT — F. Aga, Y. Yamamoto, et al. (2012)
• Surprising finding of a primary pericardial mesothelioma — J. Vavalle, T.M. Bashore, et al. (2010)
• Primary malignant sarcomatoid mesothelioma in the pericardium — K. Tateishi, M. Ikeda, et al. (2013)

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