[Bronchoplasty in bronchopulmonary tumors. Review of 50 cases]

Bronchoplasty in oncological surgery is performed to remove a tumor while preserving most of the pulmonary parenchyma. Survival in selected patients is similar to survival after lung removal. We report a series of 50 bronchoplastic procedures performed in 37 patients with bronchopulmonary cancer. Twelve had carcinoid tumors and 1 had single lung metastasis from adenocarcinoma of the colon. Twenty-seven operations were performed on the right side and 23 on the left. The pulmonary parenchyma was not resected in 2 patients. The pulmonary artery was also repaired in 5 patients. Mortality at 30 days was 2% (1 patient) and survival at 5 years was 47% calculated according to the method of Kaplan-Meier. Survival was 37 months in only 1 of the 8 patients with mediastinal adenopathy, for whom complementary radiation therapy was provided. Survival among the patients with carcinoid tumors is 91.6% to date, as all but 1 are alive at present. The single death was due to intestinal diverticulosis. The patient with metastasis is alive 12 years after surgery. Spirometric function tests were performed in 17 patients 1 year after surgery and ventilation perfusion was studied in 13. A slight loss of forced vital capacity and maximum expiratory volume in 1 second, while ventilation perfusion corresponding to the parenchyma preserved was normal. Bronchoplasty is the treatment of choice for endobronchial tumors with low degrees of malignancy. Bronchoplasty is an effective surgical treatment for a select group of carcinomas.