THORACOSCOPIC IMPLANTATION OF CANCER WITH A FATAL OUTCOME

A case is presented in which an indeterminate lung lesion was extracte d through an accessory incision during a video-assisted thoracic surgi cal lung biopsy. The lesion was malignant, and a completion lobectomy was performed. An incisional recurrence developed 5 months later, and this was treated with a wide chest wall resection and reconstruction. However, there was a second massive chest wall recurrence that proved fatal. We believe that tumor seeding to the chest wall occurred at tho racoscopy. To prevent such tumor seeding, thoracoscopic biopsy specime ns should be removed in some sort of receptacle when cancer is suspect ed.