[Importance and prospects of surgical study methods in lung cancer]

More than 20 years' experience with surgical exploration in cancer of the lung is generalized in this article. The use of prescalene biopsy allowed to find out metastases in 130 out of 308 patients (42.2%), mediastinoscopy helped to refine the degree of the propagation of the process in 36.2%, and parasternal mediastinotomy--in 49.5%. Due to laparoscopy and laparotomy metastases in the abdominal organs (liver, adrenal glands, retroperitoneal nodes) were found in 22 out of 162 patients. The diagnostic thoracotomy carried out upon 109 patients revealed tumors of the lungs in 50 patients, in 47 out of them it was an early stage of primary cancer.