[Malignant chest wall infiltration in MR: comparison with CT and surgical findings]

CT and MRI were performed on 19 patients with pleura related thoracic tumors with respect to the detection of chest-wall invasion. All patients underwent surgery, which confirmed malignant infiltration in 16 cases, while this was excluded in three. CT showed chest-wall invasion in 12/19 patients. MRI demonstrated tumorous involvement in 16 patients. A reliable pattern of chest-wall invasion in MRI were high signal intensity lesions within the chest-wall in the T2-weighted images. However, increased signal intensity of pleural structures was found in inflammatory as well as in malignant lesions. MRI can prove the presence of chest-wall invasion when CT is equivocal.