Acute Cor Pulmonale as the First Presentation of Adenocarcinoma Lung: A Case Series

ABSTRACT Malignancy is a well-known risk factor for venous thromboembolism. However, when a patient with no known cancer presents with an acute pulmonary embolism, the possibility of an underlying malignancy as an inciting agent is often unexplored. There have been reports of increasing number of cases where lung malignancy is being diagnosed within a year or two after an event of idiopathic or unprovoked thrombosis. Once malignancy and pulmonary embolism happen to be in the same page, treatment gets challenging, hospital stay increases and prognosis worsens. We experienced two such cases where pulmonary embolism was the initial presentation of an occult lung malignancy. We herein share our experience and review the literature for possible pathogenesis. KEYWORDS: lung, pulmonary embolism, venous thromboembolism, adenocarcinoma.