CASE REPORT   

Il Giornale Italiano di Radiologia Medica 2019 Settembre-Ottobre;6(5):480-4

DOI: 10.23736/S2283-8376.19.00231-6

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English, Italian

Spontaneous hemomediastinum due to rupture of a bronchial artery aneurysm: diagnosis and treatment

Nicola GAGLIARDI ¹ ✉, Vincenzo PENNACCHIO ², Milena COPPOLA ², Raffaella NIOLA ³, Luigia ROMANO ¹

¹ Unit of Radiology and Emergency Medicine, A. Cardarelli Hospital, Naples, Italy; ² Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Federico II University, Naples, Italy; ³ Unit of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, A. Cardarelli Hospital, Naples, Italy

Spontaneous hemomediastinum is a rare event and recognizes among its main pathophysiological causes coagulopathies, hemorrhages of organs contained in the mediastinum, vascular lesions and idiopathic causes. The clinical symptoms are not very specific, being present in other medical conditions caused by pathologies of different genesis. In particular, retro-sternal pain, which frequently accompanies it, represents a common symptom to various diseases, especially of a cardio-vascular nature. Due to complex and often difficult clinical classification, computed tomography is a key diagnostic investigation, both in recognizing the cause of the hemomediastinum and in determining the subsequent therapeutic planning of the patient. In this work we describe a rare case of spontaneous hemomediastinum caused by the rupture of an unknown aneurysm of the right bronchial artery, subsequently treated with endovascular embolization.

KEY WORDS: Mediastinum; Hemorrhage; Bronchial arteries; Aneurysm