Studies on the Cases of Pulmonary Metastases from Colorectal Cancer

Abstract

To evaluate the results of treatment for lung recurrence after curative resection of colorectal cancer, a total of 33 patients with this disease were retrospetively studied. Twelve of the 33 patients underwent pulmonary resectin for curative intent. Of these, 10 patients are alive without disease with an overall median survival of 26.4 months, although 4 patients underwent reoperation for recurrence. Five-year survival rate for the patients with pulmonary resection was 78.7%, and it was significantly greater than those without resection (p<0.01).
Location and stage of primary cancers, size of the metastatic tumors and serum CEA values were not significantly different between resected and unresected patient groups. The disease-free interval after the initial surgery for colorectal cancer of the resected patients (33.0 months) was significantly longer than that of unresected patients (19.6 months) (p<0.01).
These results indicate that prolonged survival can be achieved following resection of pulmonary metastasis from colorectal cancer in selected patients. The patients who were indicated for pulmonary resection, however, may have a selection bias that their diseases were slow-growing and biological behaviors of those were modest as compared with patients who had unresectable disease.