Type:
Educational Exhibit
Authors:
A. Sanchez-Montanez Garcia-Carpintero1, T. M. de Caralt2, R. J. Perea Palazon2, J. T. Ortiz2, L. Riera Soler1, T. Sauri Nadal3; 1Sabadell/ES, 2Barcelona/ES, 3Girona/ES
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2010/C-0745
Conclusion
Although carcinoid tumors are rare, CHS is a severe complication that is almost always limited to the right heart valves in patients with liver metastases. There is a growing body of evidence that the hyperserotonemia that appears in CHS results in the pathological process that eventually leads to heart valve destruction and dysfunction.
It is important to be aware of the multisystemic involvement of carcinoid tumors and to know the target organs that can be affected secondarily. In any symptomatic patient with a compatible context, echocardiography is the technique of choice for suspected CHS; however, other imaging techniques are becoming more relevant in cardiac imaging, especially contrast-enhanced MRI, which can help show endocardial fibrosis and enables the correct evaluation of the heart valves, especially in of the pulmonary valve, which is often difficult to assess with echocardiography.