Primary chest wall tumors are rare compared to lung tumors. Lung tumors and chest wall tumors differ greatly in treatment. Therefore, differentiating between lung and chest wall tumors is clinically very important.

Chest wall tumors originate from various organs. (Fig.2) Excision and reconstruction methods vary depending on the site and extent of the disease.

Advances in CT technology have made it possible to understand the primary organs and extent in detail.

1. Chest wall diagnosis by ultra-high-resolution CT (Fig.3, Fig.4)

Ultra high-resolution CT is a CT that realizes a minimum slice thickness of 0.25mm by reducing the detector size to 1/4 of the conventional size, and realizes a spatial resolution of 0.15mm by setting the number of channels to 1792ch, which is twice the conventional number. Maximum matrix size: 2048 × 2048. As with conventional CT, high-speed whole body imaging is possible. It is effective for depicting the chest wall structure. It can clearly depict bone destruction, chest wall muscle structure, and intercostal muscle and fat. Contrast-enhanced CT clearly depicts the intercostal artery and vein. (Fig.5, Fig.6, Fig.7, Fig.8)

2. Chest wall adhesion diagnosis by 4-dimensional respiratory dynamic CT (Fig.9, Fig.10)

The 320-row area-detector CT is a CT that can scan the range of 160 mm with one rotation by detectors arranged in the body axis direction of 0.5 mm × 320 rows (160 mm). Since continuous scanning is possible without table movement (without using helical scan), continuous 3D images can be acquired. This scanning can visualize the movement of the anatomical structure during breathing. This is useful for diagnosing adhesions between the thorax and intrapulmonary structures. (Fig.11, Fig.12)