Which tumours involve the chest wall | CION Cancer Clinics

The lung tumour has grown through the lining and into the ribs or muscle beside it. It changes the stage and often the plan, which may now include removing part of the chest wall with the lung tumour, or radiotherapy and medicines first.

Yes. It can return in the skin, the scar, or the muscle and ribs beneath. It usually shows as a firm lump or a patch of thickened skin over the old scar. Any new change in that area should be seen promptly, because the treatment differs depending on how deep it goes.

A cancer that starts in bone, cartilage, muscle, fat or the other supporting tissues, rather than in an organ. In the chest wall the most common types start in rib cartilage or in the soft tissue between the ribs. They are rare, and they are treated by a different team from lung or breast cancer.

Not on its own. Painful lumps are very often harmless swelling of the rib cartilage or an old injury. Cancers tend to be painless early on. What matters is whether the lump is growing. Either way, the answer is a scan, not waiting to see.

Most do not. A small number of bone and soft tissue cancers are linked to inherited conditions, and your team will ask about relatives who had cancer young. The far more common risk factor is radiotherapy to the chest given years earlier for another cancer.

Sometimes, if it has damaged the bone. Often it cannot, because soft tissue tumours do not show well and small bone changes are easy to miss. A CT is the usual first scan for a chest wall lump, with an MRI added to see the soft layers.

It depends entirely on which tumour it is. Some sarcomas are treated with chemotherapy before surgery. Lung and breast cancers that reach the wall usually have radiotherapy or medicines as part of the plan. The tumour board decides the order after the biopsy result is known.

No. Chest wall resection with reconstruction needs a surgical oncologist or chest surgeon, and often a plastic surgeon, working together. Ask any centre how often they do it and who will do the reconstruction. For a sarcoma, ask whether a sarcoma team reviews the case.