The current status of postoperative complications and risk factors after a pulmonary resection for primary lung cancer. A multivariate analysis.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present study is to identify the current postoperative complications after a pulmonary resection for primary lung cancer and the associated risk factors.
METHODS: From 1988 to 1992, 291 patients with primary lung cancer, excluding T4 diseases, consecutively underwent a pulmonary resection at our institute. The observed postoperative complications were divided into non-life-threatening ones (simple arrhythmia, atelectasis, liver dysfunction, etc.) and life-threatening ones (respiratory failure, pyothorax, pneumonia, bronchopleural fistula, cardiac failure, cerebral infarction, myocardial infarction, etc.). Using logistic regression procedures, both univariate and multivariate analyses of the association between various perioperative factors and the incidence of postoperative complications were performed.
RESULTS: Non-life-threatening complications occurred in 60 patients (20.6%) while life-threatening ones occurred in 36 (12.4%), and resulted in five in-hospital deaths (1.75%). Multivariate analyses showed that an age of 70 or older, a combined resection, an abnormality on preoperative ECG, and diffusing capacity of carbon monoxide (%DLco) below 70 were all independently associated with an increased non-life-threatening morbidity. On the other hand, an age of 70 or older, the need for a pneumonectomy, and a %DLco below 70 were also independently predominant risk factors for life-threatening morbidity.
CONCLUSION: The risk factors for life-threatening morbidity therefore did not completely correspond to those for non-life-threatening morbidity. Since the mortality was quite low, even risk factors for life-threatening morbidity were not solely considered to be a contraindication for a major pulmonary resection.