Tracheobronchial tumors: an eighteen-year series from Capital Hospital, Peking, China.

From 1961 to 1979 in Capital Hospital, Peking, China, 27 patients with tracheobronchial tumors were treated: 20 underwent operation and 7 were managed by palliative measures. All 27 patients had an intraluminal lesion of the trachea or major bronchi. Respiratory obstruction was the main clinical manifestation of the tracheal tumors. Chronic suppurative infection of the lung was the principal clinical manifestation of the bronchial tumors. Histological diagnosis of these 27 patients revealed ten different cell types: squamous cell carcinoma (10 patients, including the 7 who did not undergo operation); adenoid cystic carcinoma (5 patients); carcinoid, hamartoma, neurofibroma, and papilloma (2 patients each, respectively); and leiomyoma, hemangioma, chondroma, and teratoma (1 each, respectively). The operative methods used in 20 patients were lateral resection of tracheal wall (2 patients), resection of left main bronchial root (1), local excision (5), lobectomy (5), pneumonectomy (3), bronchoscopy (1), and exploratory operation and tracheostomy (3). Local excision or lateral wall resection of the trachea was chosen for benign or less dangerously malignant tracheal tumors. Lobectomy or pneumonectomy was performed for the secondarily infected, destroyed lungs in patients with bronchial tumors.