A CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL STUDY OF RESECTED CASES OF ADENOSQUAMOUS CARCINOMA OF THE LUNG

Adenosquamous carcinoma of the lung is an uncommon form of the lung ca ncer, Owing to the infrequent occurrence of this disease, no series re ported to date (and to our knowledge) has been of adequate size for de finitive statistical analysis. In this study, survival curves and back ground factors affecting prognosis in those with resected adenosquamou s carcinoma of the lung were reviewed. In the period from 1973 to 1994 , a total of 1,284 patients with primary lung cancer, including 44 cas es (3.4%) of adenosquamous carcinoma, were surgically treated in our d epartment, The cumulative 5-year postoperative survival rate, for all cases of adenosquamous carcinoma of the lung, was 18.5%. When the surv ival rates were compared by histologic type, the outcomes of patients with adenosquamous carcinoma were statistically worse than for patient s with squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma, owing to the highly aggressive pathologic stage of adenosquamous carcinoma. The backgroun d factors most closely associated with the survival rate in those with adenosquamous carcinoma, using Cox's proportional hazard model, were gender and the degree of nodal involvement. Five-year survival was obt ained in seven patients as follows: T1N0M0 in one patient, T2N0M0 in t hree, T2N1M0 in two, and T3N0M0 in one. Of these seven patients, all h ad received complete resections, and five were NO cases. Although our series is small, this study suggests that adenosquamous carcinoma of t he lung is an aggressive tumor that grows rapidly.