PET/CT demonstration and monitoring of thoracic and abdominal wall mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is a malignancy arising from the embryonic coelomic mesodermal lining forming the pleura, peritoneum, pericardium, and tunica vaginalis. It is mostly induced by exposure to asbestos. The author presents a 77-year-old woman with an atypical manifestation of epithelioid mesothelioma, which does not follow the expected clinical characteristics of this disease mentioned above. In this case, PET/CT provides useful information concerning the extension of the lesions to thoracic and abdominal walls not fully evaluated by the initial conventional cross-sectional imaging. PET/CT also allows an accurate therapeutic monitoring of the disease.