WITH
I inoperable lung cancers who had been treated in the Department of Radiotherapy of the Francis Delafield Hospital, New York, N.Y., with definitive radiotherapy, either 2million volt or radioactive cobalt ( C O S O ) irradiation, were evaluated as to treatment methods, tolerance to therapy, and results. These patients could be divided into 2 groups: the first group was classified as having inoperable cancers because of clinically demonstrable generalized disease; the second group had been found to have unresectable cancers at exploratory thoracotomy.
In contrast to this combined patient material, the present report will deal exclusively with patients of the second group type, those who underwent an exploratory thoracotomy but were found to have inoperable tumors at the time of operation. This represents a more favorable patient material inasmuch as there was at least no clinical evidence of inoperability and no proof of distant metastases.
One hundred thirty-five patients who had undergone an exploratory thoracotomy but were found at operation to have unresectable tumors were treated in the Department of Radiotherapy of the Francis Delafield Hospital between July, 1955, and January, 1963. The present report, however, will be limited to the 82 patients who had completed therapy by March, 1960, allowing at least a 3-year followup. This group consists only of such patients in whom the diagnosis had been verified by microscopic examination and who were treated with a full course of supervoltage radiation. Patients who were not referred to radiotherapy immediately after the exploratory thoracot-