Abstract
A 63-year-old woman was referred to our hospital for close examination of a growing abnormal shadow in the left middle lung field on chest X-ray. Chest computed tomography revealed a chest wall tumor, 7 cm in maximum diameter, slightly destroying the fourth rib and protruding into the thoracic cavity. Signal intensity of the tumor on magnetic resonance imaging was low on T1-weighted images and high on T2. She was scheduled to undergo surgery according to the primary diagnosis of a tumor of the rib or pleura. Intraoperative histological examination by frozen section suggested the diagnosis of chondroma. However, we performed a wide excision with a 3 cm-wide margin because a possibility of low-grade chondrosarcoma could not be ruled out. The final histopathological diagnosis was grade I chondrosarcoma. She had been free from recurrence and metastasis until her death from cerebral hemorrhage 32 months after the surgery. In the treatment of chondrosarcoma, appropriate surgical excision with a wide margin like in our case is essential because both chemotherapy and radiotherapy are less effective and preoperative diagnosis is difficult.
