[Bronchial cancer associated with atheromatous arteriopathy. Prognostic and therapeutic consequences in pulmonary excision]

Between January 1980 and January 1985, 462 consecutive patients underwent lung resection for bronchogenic carcinoma. Eighty of these patients (17.3 percent) had atherosclerosis involving mainly the coronary arteries (40 percent). The mortality rate was significantly higher in patients with atherosclerosis (10 percent) than in those without it (4.7 percent), but the long-term survival was not affected with the presence of atherosclerosis. The lung carcinoma-atherosclerosis association raises two problems: what investigations should be carried out in this group of patients at risk, and what treatment should be given priority when vascular lesions are present and likely to become complicated by pulmonary surgery? However, the presence of atherosclerosis should not lead to a re-evaluation of the need for lung resection.