[A case report of malignant schwannoma of the chest wall]

We described a very rare case of malignant schwannoma of the chest wall, which was surgically resected. The patient, a 40-year-old woman, came to our hospital because of an abnormal shadow in the right chest wall of an X-ray film without any symptoms. Computed tomography revealed a solid tumor attached to the posteroinferior aspect of the intrathoracic chest wall. The tumor was a 2.5 x 2.1 cm, mass originating from the seventh intercostal nerve without pulmonary adhesion, and the patient underwent en bloc resection of the tumor. The pathological diagnosis was malignant schwannoma. The postoperative course was uneventful, and the patient, eight years after the operation is now doing well without local recurrence or distant metastasis. We reviewed seven cases of this type of tumor reported in the Japanese literature.