Abstract

Routine radiographic chest screening—as employed upon entry and release from the Royal Navy—is intended to identify pathology which may be clinically covert. Occasionally, asymptomatic lesions of wholly benign appearance are identified. In these circumstances, clinicians may feel obliged to undertake a series of increasingly complex investigations, even exploratory surgery, in order to confirm the diagnosis. This course of events may also follow chest radiographs taken for unrelated reasons—eg exclusion of skeletal injury following trauma.

Mediastinal cysts (eg Bronchogenic and Enteric) may present as asymptomatic mediastinal masses with benign features. Two such cases are reported in which a prominent mediastinal mass was revealed at routine or post trauma chest radiography and a brief review of bronchogenic and enteric cysts is presented.