INTRODUCTION: The only curative treatment of tumors of the chest wall (primary or secondary),despite all the progress in oncological therapy, is a surgical radical resection. The goal of the paper is the identification of a complication occurring after chest wall resections for a tumor (evaluation of morbidity and mortality). Furthermore, the tumor type and employed reconstruction method were analyzed. METHODS: A group of patients who underwent resection of the chest wall for primary or secondary tumors at the 1st Dept. Of Surgery, University Hospital Olomouc, was retrospectively analyzed. Age, diagnosis, procedure, histopathology of the tumor, preoperative and postoperative oncological treatment, preoperative co-morbidities, postoperative complications, the use of artificial lung ventilation and recurrences were recorded for all patients. RESULTS: 57 patients aged 16 to 86 years underwent a chest wall resection, 51% for a primary tumor and 49% for a secondary tumor. Resection of at least one rib or partial resections of the sternum were performed in every patient. Reconstruction with a mesh was employed in 22 patients; in 10 patients the mesh was covered with a muscle flap. Postoperative complications occurred in 10 patients (17.5%). CONCLUSION: It is necessary to follow the basic principles of treatment of chest wall tumors; therefore surgery of these tumors should be concentrated to specialized centers. Always before surgery, diagnosis should be established by means of a biopsy and generalization of the disease should be excluded, ideally using PET/CT. Most important for successful treatment is experience and interdisciplinary cooperation of the team. This results in a low mortality and morbidity rate, which was confirmed by our results. KEYWORDS: chest wall tumors chest reconstruction sternum resection - treatment of chest wall tumors chondroma.