Long-term survival following bronchotomy for polypoid bronchial carcinoid tumours

Typical bronchial carcinoids are very low grade neuroendocrine neoplasm of the tracheobronchial tree and have very good results in surgical treatment. Surgical treatment varies from bronchotomy-excision to major resective procedures. We presented our results of bronchotomy, simple excision and long-term follow-up.

In Atatürk Centre for Chest Disease and Chest Surgery, 16 patients with bronchial carcinoid tumour underwent bronchotomy-excision over a 23-year-period. In all of the cases tumours were in polypoid type. Except these 16 cases 51 patients with bronchial carcinoids underwent operations in the same period. Presenting symptoms were haemoptysis, cough, recurrent pulmonary infection, dyspnea and chest pain. Rigid bronchoscopies were performed on all of the patients preoperatively for diagnosis of the tumour and to determine the surgical procedure and we performed control bronchoscopies on all of the patients in their follow-up period.

Patients were checked for periods ranging from 2 to 23 years both radiologically and bronchoscopically. We did not find any recurrences and death related to surgery and morbidity rate were minimal.

We think that bronchotomy and simple excision are effective and safe procedures for the treatment of bronchial carcinoid tumours with low morbidity in selected cases like polypoid type lesions and have as good a long-term survival rate as the other surgical treatment methods have.