[Strategy and treatment of postoperative recurrence of primary lung cancer]

We studied the strategy and treatment of the postoperative recurrence cases of primary lung cancer. A total of 723 resected primary lung cancer patients treated with adjuvant therapy until 1982 were subjected for this study. One hundred and eighty-five cases recurred postoperatively among the cases with 4 histologic types of adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma or small cell carcinoma, with definite postsurgicopathologic TNM classifications. The results obtained were as follows. 1. The recurrence rate of slightly advanced cases with complete mediastinal lymph node dissection was lower than those with incomplete dissection, indicating the importance of complete mediastinal lymph node dissection for the strategy of the postoperative recurrence of primary lung cancer. 2. Transfer factor adjuvant immunochemotherapy appeared to suppress or delay postoperative recurrence. 3. Most of the cases with recurrence were found at the terminal stage and the postoperative check-up method should be improved. 4. The treatment modality for the recurrent cases was different depending on patients' characteristics. 5. The cases with brain or pulmonary metastasis were rarely operated, however, the resection of pulmonary metastasis was considered to be effective for survival in selected cases.