Pulmonary resection of metastatic colorectal adenocarcinoma. A ten year experience.

During a ten-year period, 66 patients with known primary colorectal adenocarcinoma underwent thoracotomy for pulmonary metastases. The median post-thoracotomy survival was 3.5 years and the cumulative survival at five years was 38 percent. The number of pulmonary metastases was significantly associated with post-thoracotomy survival (p less than .001). Patients with a solitary metastasis had a better survival than those with multiple pulmonary metastases. The association of disease-free interval and post-thoracotomy survival was of borderline significance (p = 0.1). Age, sex, grade of tumor, location of primary cancer, location of pulmonary metastases, size of resected metastases, initial stage of the primary colorectal cancer and the type of pulmonary resection had no influence on post-thoracotomy survival.