[Surgery for bronchial carcinoma after treatment of a previous cancer]

The increase in the number of cancer survivors, together with the improvement of their follow-up, lead to the frequent diagnosis of resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with history of previous malignancy. We sought to analyse the outcomes of these patients.

Patients undergoing surgical resection for NSCLC between January 1980 and December 2009 were retrospectively reviewed. For each patient, the presence of previous malignancy was noted, and classified into five groups: oro-pharyngeal cancer, lung cancer, haematopoietic malignancy, other organ malignancy, and more than two cancers.

The overall population included 5846 patients. Among them, 1243 (21%) had a history of previous malignancy, of whom 383 (31%) presented with synchronous cancer. Patients with history of previous malignancy were more often female, older, with more adenocarcinomas, more limited disease, less pneumonectomies, but higher postoperative morbidity and mortality. Overall survival was worse in patients with a history of previous malignancy than in patients without (median, 5 and 10 year: 33 months, 34.3%, 17.8% versus 47 months, 44.6%, 28.8%).

A history of previous malignancy impacted significantly the prognosis of patients operated on for limited NSCLC. However, only surgical resection led to improved long-term survival at 5 years.