Chest wall swelling: unusual presentation of an aggressive mediastinal tumour

The majority of patients with primary mediastinal lymphoma are symptomatic at the time of diagnosis and commonly have fever, weight loss and/or night sweats. Symptoms due to compression of adjacent mediastinal structures are infrequent, but may include pain, dyspnoea, stridor, or superior vena cava syndrome. Local infiltration into the chest wall, pleura and pericardium is not uncommon.In the present report, two interesting cases of chest wall swellings that in fact were extensions of primary mediastinal lymphoma are given. Histopathology of the tumour was large B cell lymphoma (CD20+). The first case was in a 23-year-old woman, with dramatic onset but a good outcome. The second was in a 34-year-old Pakistani woman, with insidious onset and poor outcome due to extent and invasion by the tumour. Interesting CT images are presented showing chest wall and left supraclavicular swelling.