Epicardial tumour originating from renal cell carcinoma

A 66-year old male was admitted for indications of a cardiac tumour. Chest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a hyper-vascular tumour on the pericardium (Fig. 1A–C). A cardiac three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography (CT) shows that the tumour was located exactly on a coronary artery (Fig. 2). An open biopsy proved that the metastasis originated in renal cell carcinoma. Figure 1: Chest MRI showed a 34 by 28 mm tumour located in front of the ventricle in a T1-weighted image (A) and a T2-weighted image (B). The tumour was very prominent in an enhanced T1-weighted image (C). Figure 2: 3D cardiac CT reconstruction. The tumour was located on the left anterior descending coronary artery.