2005 Volume 19 Issue 7 Pages 854-858
We present a rare case of mediastinal cyst infiltrating into the lung which clinical and pathological findings suggest originated from the esophagus. The patient was a 66-year-old female who had been found to have a cystic lesion measuring 7×5 cm in the posterior mediastinum 3 years before, and had complained of persistent pyrexia, cough, and sputum for 5 months. Chest CT scans on admission revealed a large cystic mass with an air fluid level. The cyst was resected with adhered S10 of the lung, leaving a part of the wall abutted on the esophagus and the aorta. Pathologic examination showed remarkable infiltration of inflammatory cells into the cystic wall and the epithelium was exhausted due to the inflammation. Those findings didn't provide us definitive diagnosis. We concluded, however, that inflammation occurred in the esophageal cyst followed by infiltration into the lung, because the cyst was adjacent to the esophagus and foreign body-like remnants of food were found in the resected specimen.
