Alleviation of severe compressive symptoms in a patient with advanced lung carcinoma using tracheal and superior vena cava stents.

Lung cancer is now the leading cause of death from cancer worldwide. Although surgery remains the treatment of choice, the majority of patients will be unresectable at presentation with a poor survival outcome. In those patients who also have tracheobronchial involvement; the aim of intervention is to restore airway patency, thus improving quality of life in a minimally invasive way. Superior vena cava (SVC) infiltration by lung carcinoma is present in 3%-5% of patients with lung cancer. In patients with malignant SVC syndrome, the average life expectancy is 3 to 10 months. In these cases the disease progresses rapidly and obstruction develops before there is time for collaterals to develop. We present a case of a 75-year-old man who had alleviation of severe compressive symptoms secondary to advanced lung carcinoma using tracheal and SVC stents placed as a single procedure.