[Operative and interventional therapy of lung metastases]

Almost every third patient succumbing to a malignant disease has metastases in the lungs. However, these are often asymptomatic and are detected fortuitously during a routine examination. Today, the surgical removal of lung metastases is associated with a risk of less than 1%, but only one-third of the patients meet the criteria for such a procedure. The long-term outcome after resection of lung metastases depends in particular on the nature of the primary tumor, the number of metastases, the duration of the period between the occurrence of the primary and development of metastases, and the completeness of the resection. In the case of inoperable metastases, interventional measures may suffice to achieve local tumor control. For the treatment of lung metastases, radiofrequency ablation in particular is currently being investigated.