Mediastinal carcinoid tumour: pre-operative arterial embolisation

Carcinoid tumours of the mediastinum are very rare. They are frequently malignant and run a quite different course from that of the more benign thymomas. We report a 70 year old man with an anterior mediastinal tumour which was initially diagnosed as a thymoma but which was subsequently shown to be a carcinoid tumour. Surgical extirpation was greatly enhanced by pre-operative angiography and arterial embolisation of the tumour. Early and aggressive diagnostic attempts, pre-operative angiography, with or without arterial embolisation, and complete surgical excision offer the best hope of a cure for these malignant tumours.