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Indian Journal of Cancer, Vol. 45, No. 2, April-June, 2008, pp. 76-77 Letter To Editor Authors' reply Sandhu A, Yates TJ, Kuriakose P Department of Hematology/Oncology, Henry Ford Hospital, 2799 West Grand Blvd, Detroit, MI 48202 Code Number: cn08025 Related article: cn08006, cn08024 Dear Sir, In response to the editorial of our recently published case report "Pulmonary artery sarcoma mimicking a pulmonary embolism", [1] we would first like to thank the Dr. Das [2] for his interest in this case. We agree with his insight that these sarcomas are perhaps not as rare as historically documented. Rather, the rarity is attributable to the challenge involved in making the diagnosis. In fact, this point is emphasized by the fact that symptoms (shortness of breath, dyspnea, and chest pain), physical examination (heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and the presence of cyanosis), and imaging studies (computed tomography and echocardiography) can all be indistinguishable from a pulmonary embolism. We agree with the editorial that all of these factors are important; however, none of them are able to distinguish between an embolism and a sarcoma. A PET scan can be a modality that could help identifying this masquerader as a malignancy, just shy of performing an invasive biopsy. Our goal was to convey the importance of considering a PET scan when confronted with such a scenario, which hopefully we were successful in doing. References
Copyright 2008 - Indian Journal of Cancer |
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