Objective: The purpose of this study is to analyze a single institution experience with pleuropneumonectomy for pleural metastasis and malignant pleural effusion in primary lung cancer.
Materials and methods: From August 1978 to August 2011, 66 consecutive patients with lung cancer underwent pleuropneumonectomy. Patients were followed-up after the operation. The quality-of-life and the survival time were recorded.
Results: All the 66 patients were successfully operated on, including 38 patients in early years (1978-1993) and 28 patients in recent years (1994-2011). Two patients in early years died after the operation. Post-operative complications occurred including heart arrhythmia, respiratory insufficiency and bacterial infection of residual lung, chylothoraxin and mental disorder. A total of 61 patients have been successfully followed-up and three patients in early years were lost in 1 year after the operation. Local recurrence was found in seven cases (4 in early years, 3 in recent years) and distant metastasis was found in 48 cases (29 in early years, 19 in recent years). A total of 54 patients died from tumors, seven patients survived. The actuarial 1, 2 and 3-year survival rates are 72.7%, 27.2% and 6.1% of 36 in patients of early years and 85.7%, 46.4% and 21.4% in 28 patients of recent years. The mean survival and the median survival of the total 64 patients were 20.0 ± 10.9 months and 17 months respectively. Further analysis showed that the mean survival and the median survival of the 36 patients in early years were 17.2 ± 9.7 months and 15 months, in contrast to 23.4 ± 11.3 months and 18 months of the 28 patients in recent years.
Conclusion: Pleuropneumonectomy is an option of patients with advanced-stage lung cancer associated with uncontrolled malignant pleural fluid by conservative therapies. Strict selection of patient to be operated, careful procedures to eradicate obvious tumors and metastasis and enhanced post-operative combined therapy are beneficial to patients' long-term survival.