[Surgical treatment of 165 cases of stage III small cell lung carcinoma]

The author analysed the effect of surgical therapy in 165 cases with stage III SCLC from 1979 to the end of 1991, and compared with 87 cases of combined therapy and 78 cases in simple operative therapy. The author also makes an observation of cases with pre-operative and (or) post-operative chemo- and radiation therapy. Their over-all 5 year survival rate was 16.6%. Stage among 5 year survival cases in TNM stage. IIIa was 20.4% and no for Stage IIIb. The 5 year survival of combined therapy was 22.8% and that of simple operative group was 7.9%. The result shows that in the Stage III SCLC combined therapy is superior to that of simple operative group. It seems that postoperative radiation and chemotherapy is better than pre-operative in combined therapy group. The author's opinion is that surgical indication of SCLC is limited to stage IIIa.