title: Cardiac cavernous hemangioma mimicking pericardial cyst: atypical echocardiographic appearance of a rare cardiac tumor.
abstract: Cavernous hemangioma is a rare tumor with infrequent cardiac involvement. Preoperative or antemortem diagnosis may be difficult. Several prior case reports have described echocardiographic findings of cavernous hemangioma. We report here a 50-year-old white female patient with this tumor. Transesophageal echocardiography detected a mass with an echocardiographic appearance not previously described for cavernous hemangioma. The tumor appeared as a large echolucent unilocular cystic mass, leading to an erroneous preoperative diagnosis of pericardial cyst. This previously unreported finding should be recognized by echocardiographers in the evaluation of cardiac masses.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Westchester County Medical Center, Valhalla, New York 10595, USA.
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Landolphi
authors.forename: R N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Belkin
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Hjemdahl-Monsen
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: LaFaro
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D017548:Echocardiography, Transesophageal; D005260:Female; D006338:Heart Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006392:Hemangioma, Cavernous / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008476:Mediastinal Cyst / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008875:Middle Aged