[Pleuropulmonary metastases originating from extra-thoracic neoplasia]

The lungs receive the entire venous drainage of the body. This explains the high incidence of pleuropulmonary metastases originating from several cancers. The goal of this is to study the clinical manifestations of pleuro-pulmonary metastases originating from extra-thoracic cancers. We conducted a retrospective study of patients with pleuro-pulmonary metastasis whose data were collected in our department between January 2006 and december 2014. 76 patient medical records were studied. The average age was 50 years (aged 21-89 years) with a male predominance in 57.8% of cases. Clinical symptoms were mainly cough (32.8% of cases), dyspnea (23.7% of cases) and hemoptysis (11.2%). Primary cancers responsible for various pleuro-pulmonary metastases found in our case series were dominated by breast cancers in 27.6% of cases, gastro-intestinal cancers in 15.8% of cases, genital cancers in 9, 2% of cases, sarcomas in 7.8% of cases, renal cancers in 5.2% of cases, bladder cancers in 5.2% of cases, prostate cancers in 3.9% cases, ENT cancers in 3.9% of cases, thyroid cancers in 3.9% of cases, skin cancers in 2.6% of cases and cancers of unknown primary origin in 14.4% of cases respectively. Several radiologic features of pleuro-pulmonary metastases have been found in our case series; they can be isolated or combined. The most common radiologic aspect was multiple pulmonary nodules in 52.6% of cases, followed by pleurisies in 34.2% of cases, diffuse micronodules in 23.6% of cases and a solitary nodule in 3.94% of cases. Secondary pleuropulmonary cancers are frequent. They come in 3rd place after lymph nodes and liver metastases and are found in 30% of autopsies of patients with neoplasia.