Lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases: occurrence, comorbidity and surgical timing

The authors discuss tumor histological type, TNM staging and time of first occurrence of lung cancer, as well as related cardiovascular diseases, underlining type of treatment, surgical timing, surgical mortality, post-surgical complications and potentially additional therapies.

A total of 189 patients underwent surgery for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (Stage I-II), 35 (17.5%) of which presented with surgically relevant concurrent cardiovascular disease (8 coronary artery disease, 4 carotid stenosis, 8 obstructing artery disease, 15 aortic aneurysm). In most cases, surgical timing provides for cardiovascular disease treatment completion first, followed by lung resection only afterwards. Alternatively, concomitant cardiovascular and lung cancer treatment averts the need for repeated surgery, even though the intraoperative complications rate is higher, as long as patients are hemodynamically stabile.

No remarkable surgical mortality was observed; stay in hospital ranged from 8 to 18 days. A 5-year follow-up was carried out in only 95/189 patients; 11/18 (61%) with concurrent cardiovascular disease and 46/77 (59%) with lung cancer alone are still alive.

In 17% of cases, surgical treatment by the simultaneous and the differentiated approach for cancer and cardiovascular disease proved essential; comorbidity as an identifier of the strong correlation between the two diseases had a major impact on prognosis.