Abstract

Background: Chest wall involvement is a rare manifestation of tuberculosis and should be included in differential diagnosis of patients presenting with a chest wall mass.
Case Report: We present the case of a 66 year-old male, farmer, who was admitted to our hospital having a 5 cm in diameter, painless soft tissue mass on his left lower chest wall. After one month, when the patient admitted again for surgical resection, a three-fold increase of the diameter of the mass was observed. A percutaneous biopsy and drainage were performed and the pus was examined microscopically. The results showed the presence of mycobacterium tuberculosis (Ziehl-Nielsen stain). The patient started a twelve-month antituberculosis treatment. Until now he is free of disease.
Conclusions: CT and MRI examinations are the best imagine procedures to provide useful information about the extent and the nature of the disease and needle aspiration is essential for the final diagnosis. Treatment – chemotherapy alone or combination with surgical resection – remains under consideration.

Keywords: chest wall abscess, Tuberculosis, surgical resection, chemotherapy