[Bullous dystrophy and bronchopulmonary cancer in young patients]

It is classically admitted that young subjects with bullous dystrophy may develop lung cancer, but this rarely occurs. We report the case of 2 patients under 40 years of age who were found to have bronchial carcinoma. In such cases the clinical signs are not different from those of ordinary bronchial cancer, but the lesions are very often located in the upper lobes, adenocarcinoma is rare in contrast with the usual cancers on scars, the histological diagnosis is difficult and the prognosis usually poor owing to frequent extension to the chest wall. The problem of cancer on bullous dystrophy is essentially that of management of the dystrophy in young subjects: systematic surgery or wait-and-see attitude?