THE ROLE OF BRONCHOPLASTY IN THE TREATMENT OF LUNG-CANCER

Over a half of the patients with lung cancer have inoperable disease o n diagnosis. Limited respiratory reserve due to chronic pulmonary dise ase can preclude patients from pneumonectomy. A bronchoplastic resecti on can be used to circumvent pneumonectomy in selected cases. Its appl icability in lung cancer was investigated by following up a total of 2 8 patients who underwent this procedure for lung cancer between 1973 a nd 1993 in our institution. This was only approximately 1.4 % of all o ur lung cancer operations. The actuarial five-year survival probabilit y was 40 %, and the complication rate was 16 %. These values are compa rable to those reported in the literature and to those of pneumonectom y. It appears that the ideal cases with a proximal tumour but limited disease are rare.