Surgical treatment of Metastatic Lung Cancer / 대한흉부외과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: In spite of the development of chemotherapy, prognosis of metastatic lung cancer was poor. On the other hand, surgical intervention has proven itself to bring out superior results, therefore more operations are being praticed based on this superiority against chemotherapy and other modalities on metastatic lung cancer. MATERIAL AND METHOD: We analyzed the surgical cases performed from 1983 to 1997 on 17 cases and estimated 5 year survival rate using Kaplan-Meier method. RESULT: Average age was 42.8, ratio between male and female was 107. We had 8 single lobe resections,3 pneumonectomies,1 wedge resection,2 bilobectomy and 3 cases of lobar resection with wedge resection. 5 deaths have occured and among the 5, 3 patients were caused by recurrence of ca. The remaining 12 patients are being followed up in OPD basis among these, 3 recurrence were observed and 9 are still free of cancer. The average survival time was 40.5 months and 5 year survival rate obtained through the Kaplan-Meier method was 60.4%. CONCLUSION: Even though we are a bit short of cases, we recommend that a thoracic surgeon approach this disease through a surgical method as possibly as he could.