Abstract
Pleural lavage cytology (PLC) at thoracotomy was performed in 359 patients with non-small cell lung cancer who underwent a curative resection. Twenty patients (5.6%) were found to be positive for PLC. The clinicopathological factors of the patients identified most frequently were 12 stage III (60.0%), 15 adenocarcinoma (75.0%), and 17 vascular invasion (85.0%). Furthermore, visceral pleural invasion (p0 and p1) was absent in 10 (50.0%) of the positive PLC 20 patients. Positive cytologic findings were more frequently observed in the patients with T3/T4, p2/p3, vascular invasion. The 5-year survival rate was 33.0% in the positive PLC patients and 61.2% in the negative PLC patients. A significant difference was observed between the two groups (p=0.003). Fourteen (77.8%) of 18 positive PLC patients with an observable post-operative course showed some form of recurrence. Regarding the recurrence patterns in the positive PLC findings, distant metastasis (10/14 [71.4%]) was observed more frequently than local recurrence (4/14 [28.6%]). Systemic recurrence was more common in the positive PLC patients. In conclusion, PLC was therefore found to provide useful information in the detection of a subgroup with a high-risk of recurrence. These findings suggest that additional therapies for local and systemic recurrences are thus necessary for patients with postive PLC findings.
