A Case of Primary Squamous Cell Carcinoma Probably Arisen in the Chest Wall

Abstract

A 75-year-old man who was pointed out an abnormality on a chest X-ray was referred to our hospital because of a suspected diagnosis of lung cancer.

Contrast-enhanced chest CT and PET/CT showed a 20 mm-sized non-uniformly enhanced mass protruding from the chest wall in the upper lobe of the right lung with a strong accumulation of FDG (SUVmax 22.5). We suspected primary lung cancer with chest wall invasion and right upper lobectomy + combined chest wall resection + hilar mediastinal lymph node dissection was performed after the definite diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma was gained by an intraoperative needle biopsy. Pathological examination of the resected specimen showed that the tumor was macroscopically confined to the chest wall and showed an exclusionary growth toward the lung parenchyma, with no obvious cancer lesions in the lung parenchyma. Pathologically, the tumor was diagnosed with primary or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma in the chest wall. After the surgery, no lesions suspected to be the primary lesion were found in other organs, and it was considered to be primary squamous cell carcinoma in the chest wall. Squamous cell carcinoma in the chest wall is an extremely rare disease, and we report it with a review of the literature.