Abstract
Introduction: Thymic cavernous hemangioma, a rare mediastinal tumor, is difficult to diagnose by imaging examinations. Case presentation: We treated a 63-year-old woman with thymic cavernous hemangioma. She was found to have an anterior mediastinal mass during a routine examination, and enhanced chest CT showed that it was approximately 3.5×2.4×2.1 cm in size. Enhanced abdominal CT indicated a 2.5cm space-occupying lesion in the right kidney. We considered it to be thymoma and renal carcinoma, so we resected it by using thoracoscope and laparoscope. The postoperative pathological reports showed that the mass was thymic cavernous hemangioma and renal clear cell carcinoma. Twenty months postsurgery, the patient was alive with no evidence of tumor recurrence.Conclusions: We report a rare case of thymic cavernous hemangioma misdiagnosed as thymoma. It is difficult to obtain pathological results by needle biopsy before surgery because the location of the anterior mediastinal mass is very challenging to reach. Therefore, a thorough CT evaluation before the operation can prevent inappropriate operations from being performed.
Transient maintenance of tracheal patency upon the insertion of a flexible bronchoscope in a patient with an anterior mediastinal mass: a case report
