Desmoid tumour of the chest wall in a patient with a previous aortocoronary bypass: a complication or a coincidence?

Desmoid tumour is an uncommon, locally invasive non-metastasizing neoplastic lesion. The pathogenesis of this tumour is unclear and its treatment is controversial. In this paper, the authors report a new case of chest wall desmoid tumour in a 67-year-old man previously operated by sternotomy for a triple aortocoronary bypass. To the best of our knowledge only two cases of thoracic desmoid tumours following aortocoronary bypass have been reported in literature. The correlation between the site of the surgical approach and the tumour, and the time interval between surgery and presentation, supports the hypothesis of a causal role of surgical trauma in the occurrence of this tumour. The Authors discuss the pathogenesis of this tumour with review of the current literature.