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Vol.48 No.6 contents | Japanese/English |
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- Case Report -
A Case of Recurrent Thymoma Which Was Accurately Diagnosed Using MRI-DWI (Diffusion Weighted Imaging)
Hiroaki Toba1, Kazuya Kondo2, Hiromitsu Takizawa1, Koichiro Kenzaki1, Shoji Sakiyama1, Akira Tangoku11Department of Oncological and Regenerative Surgery, 2Department of Adult and Gerontological Nursing, the University of Tokushima Graduate School, Japan
Background. Recent technological advances in MRI-DWI now allow it to be applied to the whole body. A patient with a recurrent thymoma was accurately diagnosed using MRI-DWI. Case. A 30-year-old woman was given a diagnosis of thymoma (Masaoka's stage IVa) with myasthenia gravis (type IIb) and received induction chemotherapy and underwent an operation. She also received chemoradiation therapy postoperatively. Three years and 9 months later, an intrathoracic recurrence appeared and the lesion was resected. Five years and 9 months after the initial operation, FDG-PET/CT revealed accumulation of FDG in the para-aortic lesion and the posterior side of the right XIth intercostal space. In contrast, MRI-DWI revealed a high intensity of these lesions and 5 other small lesions in the right thoracic cavity, which showed no FDG accumulation in FDG-PET/CT. The lesions were completely resected and all 7 lesions were confirmed to be recurrent thymoma. Conclusion. Small recurrent thymomas could be successfully detected using MRI-DWI, but not FDG-PET/CT. MRI-DWI was therefore considered to be a useful tool for detecting disseminated lesions of thymoma in this case.
key words: Recurrent thymoma, Dissemination, MRI-DWI, FDG-PET/CT
Received: February 15, 2008
Accepted: July 3, 2008
JJLC 48 (6): 700-703, 2008
