1993 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 109-113
A 73-year-old man was admitted to Kinki University Hospital because of mediastinal tumor. He had a history of surgical removal of mediastinal tumor ten years ago at a local hospital. At that time the histological diagnosis was schwannoma. Percutaneous needle biopsy was performed, but histological diagnosis was not determined. We diagnosed his illness as anterior mediastinal tumor according to the radiological findings. Tumorectomy was performed and the histological diagnosis was malignant pleural mesothelioma.
We re-examined the histology of the mediastinal tumor in the first operation and found the same histological findings as that of the present operation. Malignant pleural mesothelioma is relatively rare, especially when found in the mediastinum. It was difficult to differentiate with the mediastinal tumor in this case.
Cases of malignant pleural mesothelioma with long-term survival of more than ten years are also rare. There have been two other similar cases reported in Japan.
