Abstract
Hamartomas are rare and benign tumors of the spleen. Most patients are asymptomatic and splenic hamartomas are usually incidentalomas. The common clinical manifestations are splenomegaly, spontaneous rupture, anemia, thrombocytopenia and digestive symptoms (loss of appetite and abdominal pain). It affects all age, mostly the elderly peoples.
The literature shows a strong association between splenic hamartoma and hematologic and solid malignancies (especially squamous cell carcinoma, renal cell carcinoma, and thymoma) , so when a splenic mass is detected especially in a patient with known malignancy, differential diagnosis is very important . For the same reason, the diagnosis of hamartoma in healthy people, needs to follow-up in order to monitoring possible association with neoplastic diseases.
In this context CEUS is a promising, cost-effective modality , because it shows 3 characteristic features of splenic hamartomas (hypervascularity, heterogenity, reticuloendothelial system detection) .
We described a series of cases of splenic lesions in which the use of CEUS shows typical aspects of hamartomas, observed consecutively in our internal ultrasound clinic in 2023