The Solitary Circumscribed Pulmonary Lesion Due to Bronchogenic Carcinoma: a 3-year Follow-up Study of 94 Surgically Treated Patients

¹ Fellow in Medicine, Mayo Foundation.
² Section of Roentgenology.
³ Section of Medicine.
⁴ Section of Surgery.
⁵ Section of Biometry and Medical Statistics, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation.

For 94 surgically treated patients who had bronchogenic carcinoma that presented in the thoracic roentgenogram as a solitary circumscribed pulmonary lesion, the resectability rate was 90 per cent and the hospital mortality rate was 5.3 per cent. Cytologic examination of the sputum appeared to be of definite value in the preoperative diagnosis of the uncalcified solitary pulmonary lesion. The presence or absence of thoracic symptoms seemed to be the most significant prognostic variable studied.

The over-all three-year survival rate based on 93 traced patients was 36.6 per cent. The 3-year survival rate for patients who had excision of all apparent bronchogenic carcinoma was 44.7 per cent. Compared with a previous series reported from this institution, there was no essential difference in the three-year survival rates for resectable bronchogenic carcinoma whether or not it presented on the thoracic roentgenogram as a solitary circumscribed pulmonary lesion.

Present surgical treatment of bronchogenic carcinoma must be vigorously pursued with a maximal effort directed at early diagnosis and early surgical resection.