A pictorial essay demonstrating F 18 FDG PET-CT identification of unsuspected cardiovascular masses

1001 Learning Objectives FDG-PET-CT is routinely performed as part of the imaging work up for many primary malignancies. Incidental finding of cardiovascular involvement can change both disease staging as well as intended patient management and thus significantly influence the final outcome. Purpose: Many of the cardiovascular masses remain undiagnosed due to a lack of clinical suspicion. By virtue of their location, these can cause a range of cardiovascular complications, which could be life threatening and may occur unexpectedly during treatment of the primary tumor. Most of these masses are amenable to treatment by medical and surgical intervention. Timely identification of these lesions can therefore help prevent potential complications and favorably change the outcome for these cancer patients. Methods: We present a retrospective study of patients who underwent FDG-PET-CT imaging as part of their imaging work up for primary cancer . None of these patients had clinical symptoms of cardiovascular involvement. The cardiovascular neoplasms were identified on FDG-PET imaging. Results: FDG-PET identified a spectrum of cardiovascular tumors. The distribution of some of the unsuspected cardiovascular neoplasms identified on FDG-PET detected is presented in a tabular form below