2011 Volume 25 Issue 6 Pages 657-661
Paraganglioma of the posterior mediastinum is relatively rare. We report a 50-year-old male patient, who was shown to have an abnormal shadow on a chest radiograph in a health examination. He was admitted for the gradually growing right posterior mediastinal tumor. The tumor was 30×15 mm and slightly homogenously contrasted by computed tomography, facing the right side of the 8-9th thoracic vertebrae. Magnetic resonance imaging showed almost the same image in T1 and T2 phases, with no invasion to the vertebrae. The tumor was resected with thoracoscopic surgery. Although, during the operation, a sudden elevation of the blood pressure up to 180 mmHg was observed on tumor manipulation, the postoperative course was uneventfull, and the diagnosis was paraganglioma of the posterior mediastinum immunohistochemically. We report the clinical features and biological characteristics of paraganglioma of the mediastinum compared with other case reports.
