[Surgical treatment for metastatic lung tumors]

Surgical treatment for metastatic lung tumors has been reported to be efficacious in selected patients by many authors. Most of these reports are retrospective studies. In our hospital, metastatic lung tumors were resected in 624 patients, and the 5- and 10-year survival rates after pulmonary metastatectomy were 38.3% and 26.6%, respectively. There are many long-time survivors without recurrence after thoracotomy. However, pulmonary metastatectomy seems to offer no survival benefit in some cancers, e.g., gastric cancer, even if the patients satisfy the criteria for surgery. Prospective studies for each type of primary cancer are needed to determine the true efficacy of pulmonary metastatectomy.