Analysis of Resected Stage IV Lung Cancer Cases

Abstract

We analyzed 28 resected cases of Stage IV lung cancer treated from 1975 to 1982. Each patient was assigned a pathological stage classification on the basis of examination of resected specimens. The histological types were as follows: 10 squamous cell carcinomas (38%) and 18 adenocarcinomas (64%). There were 18 cases with intrapulmonary metastasis and the remainder showed other distant organ metastasis. The 3-year survival rate of cases with solitary intrapulmonary metastasis was 46.1%, which was better than cases with distant organ metastasis (18.9%).
The group with the best prognosis consisted of cases with solitary intrapulmonary metastasis in the same lobe as the primary tumor. We considered that some cases of this group might actually be cases of multiple primary lung cancer.