Surgical treatment of neurogenic tumors of the chest.
BACKGROUND
Neurogenic tumors are commonly found in the mediastinum, especially in the posterior mediastinum or in the chest wall, and have a variety of clinical and histological features. We reviewed our experience with these types of tumors and assessed diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.


METHODS
A series of 60 consecutive patients with a neurogenic tumor of the chest, all seen at a single institute, was retrospectively reviewed.


RESULTS
The mean age of the 60 patients was 40 years, including 32 males and 28 females. Preoperative symptoms were present in seven patients (11.7%). Median tumor size was 5.3 cm, ranging from 1.4 to 20 cm. The major location of the tumor was the posterior mediastinum in 38 cases (63.3%) and the chest wall in 16 cases (26.7%). The operative procedure performed was tumor extirpation in 58 cases (96.7%), in which video-thoracoscopic procedure was performed in nine patients and chest wall resection in two cases. The major histological type was neurilemmoma in 51 patients (85%), and malignant tumor was only diagnosed in one patient with malignant schwannoma. Tumor related death occurred in only one case with malignant schwannoma. Ten patients with neurilemmoma were precisely diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging.


CONCLUSIONS
Almost all cases of intrathoracic neurogenic tumors were benign in nature. Therefore, surgical indications may be carefully determined in cases with no symptom and with imaging that indicate benign neurilemmoma.
Department of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Masafumi
M
Yamaguchi
Ichiro
I
Yoshino
Seiichi
S
Fukuyama
Atsushi
A
Osoegawa
Toshifumi
T
Kameyama
Tetsuzo
T
Tagawa
Yosihiko
Y
Maehara
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009423:Nervous System Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013899:Thoracic Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D020775:Thoracic Surgery, Video-Assisted; D016896:Treatment Outcome