Surgery after radiochemotherapy for stage III lung cancer: Postoperative complications and late results

✍ Scribed by Luca Tavecchio; Gianni Ravasi; Amedeo V. Bedini; Alberto Gramaglia; Franco Milani

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 446 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-4790
• DOI: 10.1002/jso.2930560103

✦ Synopsis

Fifty-seven stage I11 lung cancer patients underwent radiochemotherapy and subsequent surgery. Forty radical (R-), six non-radical, and eleven exploratory operations were performed. Pneumonia (five cases), pulmonary insufficiency (one case), bronchial fistula (one case) were the major non-fatal complications. Four deaths due to adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) or pulmonary embolism occurred. Sixty percent of the 10 patients who had no viable tumor at operation survived 3 years, as well as 41% of those who achieved a complete remission by resection and 11% of those with residual disease (R+) after operation. However, the 1-and 2-year survival rates were similar. The main pattern of failure in R-and R+ patients was extra-and intra-RT-field progression, respectively. A slightly higher rate of postoperative complications, with respect to current practice, was observed. However, data lead to argument on the improvement of locoregional control and long-term survival following radical surgery.