Pneumococcal aortitis, report of a case with emphasis on the contribution to diagnosis of positron emission tomography using fluorinated deoxyglucose.

We describe an 82-year-old male with pneumococcal aortitis of the descending aorta, visualized by echocardiography and positron emission tomography using fluorinated deoxyglucose (FDG-PET). Computed tomography is considered to be the best diagnostic imaging modality in infected aortic lesions; in this case, the use of FDG-PET, which gives the opportunity to distinguish between inflammatory and non-inflammatory aortic aneurysms, made an important contribution to the diagnosis.