Posterior mediastinal hemangioma mimicking neurogenic tumor: Report of two cases

We report two observations of unusual mass in the posterior mediastinum: hemangioma, with different imaging features. In one case, it was a sharply marginated mass of the paraspinal region with limited extension into the adjacent foramina. In the second case, it was a posterior mediastinal mass with a large intra-spinal extension. On CT, the two masses did not contain calcifications according to phleboliths. In CT and MRI, they showed moderate enhancement in the first case and intensive enhancement in the second case. On T2 weighted sequences, the two masses showed a very high signal. These imaging features are relatively unspecific but indicative to think about mediastinal hemangioma as important differential diagnosis. Therefore MRI is very important to give the clues for the diagnosis, even if neurogenic tumors are the most frequent masses in this location.