CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Nuclear Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1701502
This article is part of the Research TopicCase Reports in PET imaging 2025View all articles
Mediastinal epithelioid sarcoma: A case report
Provisionally accepted- Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Epithelioid sarcoma (ES) is a rare soft tissue malignancy of uncertain differentiation that can arise in various anatomical locations; however, its occurrence in the mediastinum is exceptionally uncommon. Herein, we present a 57-year-old woman diagnosed with mediastinal ES. A soft tissue mass in the mediastinum was initially detected incidentally during a routine physical examination; however, the patient did not perceive it as concerning and therefore did not seek further evaluation or treatment. Approximately five months later, the patient presented to our hospital with complaints of cough and chest tightness for diagnostic evaluation and management. A chest computed tomography (CT) scan revealed a soft tissue density mass in the posterior mediastinum, with visible intratumoral nodular calcifications and mild heterogeneous enhancement on contrast-enhanced CT, findings suggestive of a neurogenic tumor. Subsequently, the patient underwent surgical resection, and postoperative pathological examination confirmed the diagnosis of ES. Unfortunately, during the subsequent imaging follow-up, it was found that the tumor recurred within a short period of time. ES occurring in the mediastinum is rare, while our case suggests that it should be considered as one of the imaging differential diagnoses for mediastinal or near hilar tumors.
Keywords: epithelioid sarcoma, Mediastinum, computed tomography, 18F-FDG, PET/CT
Received: 08 Sep 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Yu, Li, Cai and Pan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jiong Cai, jiong_cai@163.com
Dongfeng Pan, dongfeng1960@gmail.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.