Objective: To study the results of surgical treatment of pulmonary metastases in our department.
Patients and methods: We retrospectively studied 44 patients undergoing surgery between 1986 and 1999 for complete resection of pulmonary metastases. Primary tumors had been eradicated, no metastasis to other organs was evident, and functional respiratory capacity was adequate. The patients were assigned to different prognostic groups based on the criteria of the International Registry of Lung Metastases.
Results: Forty-eight operations were performed on the 44 patients (21 men and 23 women) whose mean age was 58 years (31-74 years). The most frequent type of primary tumor was epithelial (82%); other types in order of frequency were sarcoma (9%), thyroid gland (4.4%), germ cell (2.2%) and melanoma (2.2%). The mean disease-free interval was 37.7 months (0.168) and the median was 30 months. A single site of metastasis was seen in 66.7% of the cases whereas 33.3% had multiple metastases (17.9% of them bilateral). Posterolateral thoracotomy was the surgical approach in over half the cases (66.7%). We performed wedge resections in 86.6% and lobectomies in 11.1%. Perioperative mortality was 4.4%. Mean survival was 70 months, with 87% alive at one year and 29% at 10 years. For group I (resectable, no risk factors; n = 13) survival was 100% at one year and 75% at 10 years. For group II (resectable, one risk factor; n = 16) the actuarial survival was 78% at one year and 12% at 10 years. For group III (resectable, two risk factors; n = 8), survival was 87% at one year, 62% at three years, 15% at four years and 0% at five years (Log-rank chi 2 9.8 [df = 2)], p = 0.0097).
Conclusions: Surgical resection of pulmonary metastasis is a treatment and diagnostic procedure associated with low mortality and good survival. Prognostic grouping that takes into account number of metastases, disease-free interval and resectability correlates significantly with expected survival regardless of histological typing of the primary tumor.