False positive metastatic disease due to combined thoracic and subcutaneous splenosis

Jeffrey Chen; Robert Russo; Grace Yung; Clarence Yeong; Robert Mansberg

doi:10.1016/j.radcr.2023.11.050

False positive metastatic disease due to combined thoracic and subcutaneous splenosis

Radiol Case Rep. 2023 Dec 15;19(3):872-875. doi: 10.1016/j.radcr.2023.11.050. eCollection 2024 Mar.

Authors

Jeffrey Chen¹, Robert Russo^{1

2}, Grace Yung^{1

2}, Clarence Yeong³, Robert Mansberg^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Molecular Imaging Concord Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia.
² Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
³ Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, Concord Hospital, Concord, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

A 56-year-old man presented with dyspnea secondary to pulmonary emboli and dilated cardiomyopathy. His past medical history included a history of emergency laparotomy, splenectomy, and splenic flexure resection following a gunshot injury 30 years ago. CT and MRI imaging demonstrated multiple homogeneously enhancing lobulated lesions at the left-sided pleura and chest wall with an irregular calcified spleen. The aforementioned lesions demonstrated a similar level of tracer uptake to the splenic activity with no evidence of other FDG avid malignancy on the follow-up ¹⁸F-FDG PET study. All the above-mentioned pleural and chest wall lesions demonstrated intense tracer accumulation on technetium-99m labeled heat-damaged red cell scintigraphy, consistent with combined thoracic and subcutaneous splenosis.

Keywords: FDG PET; False positive metastatic disease; Heat damaged red blood cell scan; Thoracic and subcutaneous splenosis.

Publication types

Case Reports