Chest wall implantation of lung cancer following chest tubedrainage of a pleural effusion
Li-Cher Loh, Tarmizi Thayaparan, Suryani Mohd Yusoff, Rosna Yunus and Shalini Kumar
IMU Lung Research, International Medical University, Clinical School, Seremban, Malaysia
Department of Medicine, Seremban Hospital, Seremban, Malaysia
Department of Pathology, Seremban Hospital, Seremban, Malaysia
Corresponding address: Dr Li-Cher Loh, Department of Medicine, Clinical School, International Medical University, Jalan Rasah, Seremban 70300, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.
Tel.: +606 767 7798; fax: +606 767 7709.
E-mail: loh@imu.edu.my
A 67-year-old man with a lung mass developed a large painful chest wall swelling adjacent to a chest drainage tube site. The swelling occurred after a second chest drain was performed for a rapidly relapsing pleural effusion, and the biopsy showed that it was an adenocarcinoma. We conclude that chest wall tumour implantation was caused by the chest tube drainage of the malignant pleural effusion, and that this accelerated the patient's deterioration. Our case illustrates the possibility of chest tube seeding of tumour cells from pleura to chest wall.
Key words
Thoracocentesis; chest tube; pleural effusion; adenocarcinoma; lung cancer; chest wall implantation.
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