Multicentric, moderately malignant tumors of the nonchromaffin paraganglia at the site of the aortic body, at other sites of the cardiovascular system, and in the cranial mediastinal lymph nodes were discovered incidentally at autopsy of a 7-year-old female Siamese cat. Metastases were evident grossly in the myocardium, pericardium, and cranial mediastinal lymph nodes, and histologically as tumor emboli in the stromal vessels and in epicardial, myocardial, and pulmonary lymph channels.

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Composite hemangioendotheliomas are extremely rare neoplasms of vascular origin with a very low-grade malignant potential. They have a slight female preponderance and have been reported in the dermis/cutis of the back, limbs, oral cavity, and jaw. Vertebral/spinal kaposiform, epitheloid, and spindle cell hemangioendotheliomas have been reported in the medical literature. We present here a case of a composite hemangioendothelioma in the thoracic spine. To our knowledge, this has not been reported previously in the literature.