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Updated: Mar 29, 2026
Endobronchial Ultrasound-guided Intratumoral Injection of Cisplatin for the Treatment of Isolated Mediastinal Recurrence of Lung Cancer
Published on: February 12, 2017
Relapsed hepatoblastoma confined to the lung is effectively treated with pulmonary metastasectomy
Yan Shi1, James I Geller2, Irene T Ma3
1Division of Pediatric Surgery, Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Texas Children's Hospital Liver Tumor Center, Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.
Background:
In children diagnosed with hepatoblastoma (HB), the lungs are the most common site of metastasis at both initial presentation and relapse. Previous studies have encouraged pulmonary metastasectomy to achieve a disease-free state after resection of the primary hepatic lesion. However, there is no consensus about how to manage recurrent pulmonary metastasis.
Procedure:
A retrospective, multi-institutional review was performed from 2005 to 2014 to identify HB patients ≤18years of age who had disease recurrence associated with pulmonary metastases alone.
Results:
Ten patients between the ages of 8 and 33months were identified. Pulmonary metastatic recurrence was detected by measuring alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels and/or with CT scans of the chest. All patients subsequently underwent pulmonary metastasectomy without post-operative complications. At last follow-up, 8 patients were alive and had normal AFP levels. The 8 survivors had a median follow-up from therapy completion of 18.5months. Two patients who presented with extrapulmonary recurrence subsequently died of treatment refractory disease.
Conclusions:
This review supports surgical resection as a safe and, in the context of multimodal therapy, efficacious approach to manage HB patients who present with isolated pulmonary relapse.
