Pulmonary echinococcosis mimicking multiple lung metastasis of breast cancer: the role of fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography.

BACKGROUND: Echinococcosis is still a serious problem particularly in endemic areas such as South and Central America, Mediterranean countries, and Russia. Furthermore, hydatid cysts of the lung are often indistinguishable from a variety of other pulmonary lesions such as lung tumors

CASE PRESENTATION: We herein present a 56 year old woman with breast cancer who presented with bilateral pulmonary nodules due to echinococcosis granulosis that mimicked metastatic breast cancer to the lung.

CONCLUSION: During the evaluation of the malignancies which could metastasize to the lung, it must be kept in mind that the appearance of bilateral multiple pulmonary masses can also be the sign of a pulmonary echinococcosis especially in endemic areas. FDG-PET with its known high negative predictive value in characterizing indeterminate pulmonary nodules >1 cm is very helpful to characterize this kind of lesions.