Localized fibrous tumour of the pleura: two case reviews

Our plain-English summary of Localized fibrous tumour of the pleura: two case reviews, by F. Pond, A. Wilson, P. McKelvie (The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery, 1997).

The study

• Authors: F. Pond, A. Wilson, P. McKelvie
• Journal: The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery
• Published: 1997;67(11):821-4
• Type of article: Case report
• Cited by: 5 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Summary of the article

The authors described two patients with localized fibrous tumour of the pleura treated at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, and reviewed the literature on this rare tumour. In case 1, a 41-year-old non-smoking housewife had 3 weeks of left-sided pleuritic chest pain. No history of asbestos exposure was obtained. A large left chest mass was first treated as unresolved pneumonia. A CT-guided needle biopsy suggested schwannoma. An initial thoracotomy at another hospital was abandoned because of very vascular adhesions. The tumour was later removed whole through a median sternotomy. It measured 20 x 12 x 9 cm, weighed 1.4 kg and had extensive central necrosis. Immunostaining (vimentin positive, S-100 negative) supported the final diagnosis, and there was no recurrence at 6 months. In case 2, a 55-year-old non-smoking man was referred for a painful wrist. A chest radiograph incidentally showed a right-sided mass. At thoracotomy, a 7.5 x 6 x 4 cm tumour hanging on a stalk from the visceral pleura was removed, with no recurrence after 6 years. In the discussion, the authors stated that diffuse mesothelioma is closely linked to asbestos, but asbestos plays no recognized role in causing the localized form, which is benign in 80-88% of cases. They concluded that complete resection is the treatment of choice and is curative for benign tumours, and that long-term follow-up with annual chest radiographs is advisable.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This article reported two cases of localized fibrous tumour of the pleura treated at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, plus a review of published literature on the tumour. The first patient was a 41-year-old non-smoking housewife with left-sided chest pain. No history of asbestos exposure was obtained. A needle biopsy had suggested a schwannoma, a nerve-sheath tumour, and a first operation elsewhere was abandoned because of very vascular adhesions. The tumour, measuring 20 x 12 x 9 cm, was later removed in one piece. Laboratory staining led to a final diagnosis of localized fibrous tumour of the pleura, and there was no recurrence at 6 months. The second patient was a 55-year-old non-smoking man with an insignificant occupational history. His 7.5 x 6 x 4 cm tumour, arising from the lining of the lung on a stalk, was found by chance on a chest X-ray and removed. Imaging showed no recurrence after 6 years. In their discussion, the authors stated that asbestos plays no recognized causal role in this localized tumour, unlike diffuse mesothelioma. They advised long-term follow-up with annual chest X-rays.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Case report of two patients, with a literature review
• Who was studied: Two patients at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia: a 41-year-old non-smoking housewife (case 1) and a 55-year-old non-smoking man (case 2). Dates of treatment are not given.
• Exposure: No asbestos exposure was identified. For case 1, a history of asbestos exposure was not obtained. For case 2, the past medical and occupational histories were described as insignificant.
• Main results:
  • Case 1: a CT-guided needle biopsy diagnosed schwannoma before surgery.
  • Case 1: the excised tumour measured 20 x 12 x 9 cm.
  • Case 1: after staining studies (negative for S-100 protein, a Schwann cell marker), the final diagnosis was localized fibrous tumour of the pleura.
  • Case 1: no evidence of recurrence at the 6-month review.
  • Case 2: the mass was found incidentally on a chest radiograph.
  • Case 2: the 7.5 x 6 x 4 cm mass arose from the visceral pleura on a pedicle and was removed.
  • Case 2: no radiological recurrence after 6 years.
  • In the discussion (a background statement, not a finding from these two cases), the authors wrote that asbestos plays no recognized aetiological role in the localized form, in contrast to diffuse mesothelioma.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that long-term follow-up with annual chest radiographs is advisable because recurrence can appear after a long interval.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Pleura, Pleuritic Chest Pain, Asbestos Exposure, Needle Biopsy, Thoracotomy, Necrosis, S-100, Chest X-Ray.

Related studies

• Localized fibrous tumours of the pleura: 15 new cases and review of the literature — M. Suter, S. Gebhard, et al. (1998)
• Benign localized fibrous tumor of the pleura: report of 25 new cases — S. Enon, D. Kilic, et al. (2012)
• Malignant localized fibrous tumor of the pleura occurring in a person environmentally exposed to tremolite asbestos — M. Metintas, A.R. Gibbs, et al. (1997)
• Localized fibrous "mesothelioma" of pleura (submesothelial fibroma): a clinicopathologic study of 18 cases — D. Scharifker, M. Kaneko (1979)
• Fine-needle aspiration cytology of localized fibrous tumor of pleura — D. Dusenbery, M.M. Grimes, et al. (1992)
• Localized fibrous tumors (LFTs) of the pleura: clinical data, asbestos burden, and syntactic structure analysis applied to newly defined angiogenic/growth-regulatory effectors — K. Kayser, J. Trott, et al. (2005)

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