[Pulmonary scar cancer and tumourlet (author's transl)]

Many investigations stress the importance of dysplastic changes of bronchial epithelium, chronic bronchitis, and chronic scar producing inflammatory processes of the lung in the development of bronchopulmonary carcinoma.--At the Institute for Lung Diseases and Tuberculosis Golnik in the period from 1964--1973 we found among 185 surgically resected lungs 20 cases (10,8%) of pulmonary scar cancer. In six patients (30,0%) we proved the tuberculous origin of the scar. Scar cancer was established in 18 patients (90,0%) in the upper parts of the lung. In half of all cases adenocarcinoma was found, squamous cell carcinoma was present in two cases and small cell anaplastic carcinoma in one case. --In the same period we found in surgically resected material two cases of tumourlets. In the first case in a 49-year old woman, the tumourlet was located in the scar surrounding an aspergillus mycetoma in the right upper pulmonary lobe. In the second case a tumourlet was found in a 42-year old woman in the region of focal fibrosis of the right upper pulmonary lobe. An 8 respectively 12 years postoperative follow-up shows no recurrence in both patients. This corresponds to the data from literature describing the tumourlet as benign process, recently reported as a minute peripheral carcinoid tumour.