A young pregnant woman with oesophageal cancer who responded to carboplatin plus nab-paclitaxel therapy.
Yoshinori Kikuchi, Kazuhisa Yamaguchi, Munehiro Wakabayashi et al.
✦ AI-curated · Sources linked
Case in brief
A 35-year-old woman in her fifth month of pregnancy presented with dysphagia and later dyspnea. MRI showed an 8 cm anterior mediastinal mass compressing the airway. After emergency cesarean delivery, cervical lymph node biopsy showed squamous cell carcinoma; the primary site was initially unknown. The mass shrank substantially with nab-paclitaxel plus carboplatin, allowing its origin to be identified as esophageal cancer. Esophageal recurrence and brain metastasis were subsequently detected. After radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy, no recurrence was observed for more than one year after the final treatment.
What made this case unusual
The esophageal primary initially presented as an airway-compressing anterior mediastinal mass of unknown origin, and its site became apparent only after tumor shrinkage.
Diagnostic / clinical pearl
When biopsy confirms squamous cell carcinoma but imaging suggests an anterior mediastinal primary, the site of origin may remain uncertain; in this case, tumor response helped reveal an esophageal primary.