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CASE REPORT article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cardio-Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1515950
This article is part of the Research TopicCase Reports in Cardio-Oncology: 2024View all 11 articles
Diversity of Imaging in Cardiac Angiosarcoma: Two Cases with Disparate Enhancement and Metabolic Manifestations
Provisionally accepted- The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China, Guangzhou, China
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Cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive malignancy arising from endothelial cells, is difficult to diagnose owing to its nonspecific clinical symptoms and variable imaging features. Two cases of cardiac angiosarcoma (CA) are presented, each with different enhancement and metabolic patterns on imaging.Case 1: A 59-year-old man presented with chest tightness and lower extremity edema. Ultrasound and computed tomography (CT) imaging revealed a hypoechoic/hypodense, nonenhancing mass with pericardial thickening in the right atrium. Positron emission tomography (PET) showed minimal uptake and, given that the patient had elevated D-dimer and fibrinogen levels, a thrombus was initially suspected. However, surgical intervention ultimately led to a diagnosis of CA.Case 2: A 27-year-old man presented with dyspnea and cough. Both ultrasound and CT imaging revealed a mass in the right atrium, with echogenic/hypodense features, heterogeneous enhancement, and pericardial effusion, along with pericardial thickening. A PET scan showed a significant increase in radiotracer uptake within the mass, strongly suggestive of CA. Surgical intervention subsequently confirmed the diagnosis of CA.These two cases demonstrate the presence of distinct enhancement and metabolic patterns on imaging in primary CA and indicate the importance of considering a wide range of enhancement features and metabolic activities in the differential diagnosis of patients presenting with non-specific cardiac symptoms.
Keywords: Cardiac angiosarcoma, positron emission tomography, Echocardiography, contrastenhanced ultrasound, Cardiac oncology
Received: 23 Oct 2024; Accepted: 27 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Cen, Zhao, Ran, Lu and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Weihui Lu, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China, Guangzhou, China
Pengtao Sun, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China, Guangzhou, China
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