What are Pleural Tumors?
Pleural tumors are found in the pleural space—the cavity between the lungs and chest wall that contains lubricating pleural fluid. A pleural tumor is almost always metastatic (cancerous) and difficult to operate on. The prognosis is seldom encouraging. One type of tumor—called a localized fibrous tumor of the pleura (LFTP)—is the exception to the rule. Only about one in eight LFTPs is cancerous, and recovery after surgical removal is quite high despite their typically large size. A cancerous pleural tumor is most often a secondary cancer, triggered by cancer cells that have spread to the pleural space from somewhere else in the body (usually the lungs). It is extremely unlikely that people who have never had cancer before will develop a metastatic pleural tumor. But patients who have had cancer are at risk, especially if treatment of that cancer was not totally successful in controlling it. Even so, the incidence of these tumors is rare, affecting perhaps one in 2,000 cancer patients.
