[Surgery of bronchial cancer in patients aged 75 and over]

From April 1984 to December 1990, 66 patients 75 years of age or older underwent curative mediastinal lymph node dissection. There were 37 pneumonectomies. Post-operative mortality was 12% and was not affected by the type of dissection. Five-year survival was 16.2 +/- 6.29% (median 23 months) and was more than 45% in less elderly patients. Survival rate was highly affected by presence of metastasis in the mediastinal nodes and was zero in N2 cases. More than half of the patients died from cancer-related causes. Generally, we operate all the N2 cases which appear technically dissectable. Retrospectively, we think that N2 stage detected, and confirmed histologically in patients over 75, would be the only contra-indication for this attitude.