[Pulmonary metastases - 12-year experience with surgical therapy]

Nowadays, radical surgical therapy of selected secondary pulmonary tumours is a generally accepted therapeutic procedure that has been proven to extend long-term survival of the patients with acceptable perioperative morbidity and mortality. The authors present a retrospective analysis of a set of patients who underwent surgery for pulmonary metastases of various tumours in a 12-year period.

In 2001-2012, 159 patients with secondary pulmonary tumours were operated on at the authors department, of whom 80 were men; the median age was 65 years. Solitary metastases were present in 112 patients (70.4%); the other patients had multiple metastases; 24 patients (15.1 %) suffered from bilateral involvement, and 6 patients (3.8%) suffered from relapsed metastatic disease after previous radical surgery. Colorectal carcinoma metastases were diagnosed in most cases (75 people - 47.2%). The median disease-free period from the surgery of the primary tumour was 27 months in the patient set.

In total, 166 unilateral (87.4%) and 24 bilateral surgeries were performed using one- or two-stage procedure (12.6%). Precise laser excisions represented the most common type of surgery (59 procedures - 31.1%). In total, 296 metastases were radically resected, and 13 were treated using radiofrequency ablation. Perioperative morbidity was 13.2% with a zero lethality rate. 90 operated patients (56.6%) still survive after the metastasectomy, with median survival of 44 months. The overall 3-year survival in the set was 59%, and 5-year survival was 39%. The number of metastases is a statistically significant factor affecting survival in the patient cohort with colorectal carcinoma metastases, the risk of death being 2.7 times higher in patients with 2 and more colorectal carcinoma metastases. 68 patients (42.8%) live without progression of the disease after the metastasectomy, with the median disease-free interval of 29 months. In total, 43% of the patients were free of any signs of relapse or disease progression for 3 years, and 27% for 5 years. The risk of disease progression is 2.1 times higher in patients with 2 and more metastases of any tumour, and for colorectal carcinoma this risk is 2.3 times higher.

The achieved results confirm the positive role of pulmonary metastasectomy in disseminated tumour therapy. The number of metastases is the decisive prognostic factor affecting both long-term survival of operated patients and their DFI.