Surgical treatment of solitary pulmonary metastasis

Seventeen patients undergoing pulmonary excision for metastatic tumors of the lung from 1965 to 1975 are reviewed with an overall four-year survival of 72%. From this group, four patients are alive five years and more after operation. In two patients however, multiple metastases in the contralateral lung and bones have appeared. One of them underwent a second removal of metastatic tumor in the other lung. On the basis of this limited experience and the one reported in the literature, we believe that excision of pulmonary metastasis in selected cases improve the prognosis of those patients, prolong life, and in some cases may even result in cure of the basic disease.