Multimodality Imaging in the Evaluation of Cardiovascular Manifestations of Malignancy
Figure 5
Epicardial fat. Echocardiography raised concerns about excessive soft tissue anterior to the right ventricle in this patient on long-term steroids. Bright blood cine (a) and T1-weighted images (b) show circumferential high signal around the heart (asterisks). The appearances suggest an unusual amount of pericardial fat, and this was confirmed on fat-suppressed CMR (c) where there is evidence of signal drop out from the fatty region (asterisks—compare with (b)). MDCT is also very sensitive for fat which it displays as low-density regions of negative Hounsfield attenuation ((d), asterisks). Excessive mediastinal lipomatosis is not uncommon in patients taking steroid preparations.
