Thoracoscopic surgery and conventional open thoracotomy in metastatic lungcancer - A comparative clinical analysis of surgical outcomes

Background: We performed a retrospective comparison of the oncological outc ome of thoracoscopic surgery for pulmonary metastasis with that of conventi onal open thoracotomy. Methods: The patient population for our retrospective comparison was compri sed of 45 patients undergoing pulmonary resections via video-assisted thora coscopy (thoracoscopy group) and 55 undergoing similar resections by open t horacotomy (open group) for pulmonary metastases between 1994 and 1999. Results: Solitary metastasis was resected more frequently with thoracoscopy than open thoracotomy. There were no significant intergroup differences in rates of local recurrence from the initial pulmonary resection site. The a ctuarial 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year survival rates were, respectively, 82.8 %, 70.0%, and 62.3% in the thoracoscopy group and 93.6%, 64.6%, and 52.7% i n the open group. The rates of pulmonary recurrence and survival also did n ot differ significantly between the two groups with solitary metastases. Conclusion: Thoracoscopic surgery for metastatic lung disease appears to be feasible as long as the preoperative metastatic tumor evaluation using che st computed tomography (CT) is accurate.