Carcinoid tumor of the lung: clinicopathological study of 32 cases

A retrospective study was conducted on 32 patients who had had bronchial carcinoid tumors between 1965 and 1989. The average age of the patients was 48.5 years, with a male to female ratio of 3.6:1. Of the 32 patients, 28 were diagnosed pathologically to have typical bronchial carcinoid tumors and the other four, atypical bronchial carcinoid tumors. Twenty-two of the 28 typical bronchial carcinoid tumors were classified as stage I, but only one of the four atypical bronchial carcinoid tumors was at stage I. Two typical carcinoid tumor patients and two atypical carcinoid tumor patients were found, pathologically, to have lymph node metastasis. The typical carcinoid tumors showed a more significant endobronchial polypoid growth than the atypical carcinoid tumors (P = 0.0138). The five-year-survival rate was 100% in patients with typical carcinoid tumors and 25% in those with atypical carcinoid tumors. The difference between the five-year-survival rate for the typical carcinoid and atypical carcinoid patients was statistically significant (P = 0.001).