[Postoperative irradiation in lung cancer]

The authors report a comparative analysis of the results of treatment in two groups of patients with lung cancer. In the first group (194 patients) surgical treatment was supplemented by postoperative irradiation with a total dosage of 4000--5500 rad. In the second control group (189 patients) only surgery was employed. Both groups are comparable according to main generally accepted clinical characteristics. It was found that the use of postoperative irradiation after the mentioned technic failed to improve remote results of surgical therapy. The indices of a 5-year survival proved to be higher than those with surgical treatment only--38.6% versus 24.8% in the combined treatment (P less than 0.05), that was due to the increased mortality rate as a result of complications, induced by postoperative irradiation.