Pulmonary metastasectomy

Abstract

Background: The major obstacle in curing cancer is the limited ability to prevent and treat metastatic disease. Pulmonary metastasectomy is now a standard treatment option in carefully selected cases. With the lung being frequently the only site of metastasis, a complete resection of all tumor masses poses a potentially curative treatment option.Methods: This review article gives an outline of the basics of pulmonary metastasectomy and reviews the latest research in this field.Results and conclusions: Technical advances in thoracic surgery during the past decades made pulmonary metastasectomy a safe procedure with a low morbidity. However, surgical resection must be embedded in an individualized oncological concept.The beginnings of pulmonary metastasectomy can be traced back to the 19th century. The first case of a resection of pulmonary metastases was reported in 1882. Josef Weinlechner, a Viennese pediatric surgeon, accidentally discovered and resected two metastatic nodules in the lung when removing a large sarcoma of the thoracic wall [1]. Unfortunately, this first patient died the day after surgery from shock. Throughout the following decades, single case reports of pulmonary metastasectomy have been described in the literature. In most cases, the resection of pulmonary nodules led to long-term survival. As open chest surgery in those times was itself a life-threatening intervention, beneficial effects of metastasectomy were often restrained by the high mortality and morbidity of the surgical procedure. Since these early days of pulmonary metastasectomy, many advances have been made in surgical techniques and perioperative patient care. Consequently, pulmonary metastasectomy has developed into one of the major surgical procedures in thoracic surgery [2].

Skurðmeðferð lungnameinvarpa - yfirlitsgrein um ábendingar og árangur meðferðar

“…Eins og sést í töflu I er tíðni lungnameinvarpa mismunandi eftir krabbameinum og er hún haest fyrir sarkmein, eistnakrabbamein og sortuaexli. 4 Líkur á því að hnútur í lunga sé meinvarp 1 Skurðdeild Sjúkrahússins í Helsingborg, Svíþjóð, 2 skurðlaekningadeild, 3 hjarta-og lungnaskurð deild Landspítala, 4 laeknadeild Háskóla Íslands.…”