Purpose: Lung cancers in patients with combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema (CPFE) are increasing. Objective of this investigation was to identify which clinicopathological features significantly affected surgical outcome of these patients.
Methods: Among 4313 patients with primary lung cancers who underwent surgery between January 2008 and December 2010 in nine institutions in Japan, 265 had CPFE. We retrospectively compared 2176 and 157 patients without and with CPFE, respectively, and further analyzed 233 patients with CPFE whose detailed information was available. CPFE was defined as upper lobe emphysema and lower lobe fibrosis.
Results: The rates of postoperative morbidity and mortality were higher and overall survival was poorer in patients with, than without CPFE. Among 233 patients with CPFE, the median values of %VC and FEV1.0 % were 98.4 and 71.5 %, respectively. The histological types comprised 111 squamous cell carcinomas and 84 adenocarcinomas. Surgical procedures included 203 standard lobectomies/pneumonectomies and 30 lesser resections. Five patients (2 %) developed postoperative acute exacerbation of interstitial pneumonia. Six and 15 patients (3 and 6 %) died within 30- and 90-postoperative-day, respectively. Cancer was the cause of death at 90-day in only one patient. The 3-year overall survival rate for all patients was 58.4 %. Multivariate analysis showed that male sex, advanced age, advanced clinical stage and lower %VC predict a poor prognosis.
Conclusions: Patients with lung cancer and CPFE had poor prognoses regardless of apparently good pulmonary function and showed quite high postoperative mortality rates. A lower %VC that might reflect the severity of pulmonary fibrosis was associated with poor prognoses.