Reoperation for Lung Cancer

In the past six years, 9 patients who had undergone resection of primary lung cancer underwent reoperation for intrathoracic recurrence or a new primary lung cancer. Four patients with ipsilateral recurrent disease underwent completion pneumonectomy, and three of them are alive at present without recurrence for 25 to 79 months after the second operation. Two of four patients with contralateral disease had the right upper and lower lobes remaining after the second operation. One of them died of multiple organ failure at the time of abdominal operation five months after the second operation. The other died of metastasis 16 months after the second operation. The remaining two patients with contralateral reoperation had different histologies on the first and the second operation. Tracheal resection was performed in a patient with an endotracheal metastasis. At the time of the second operation, postoperative respiratory complications were experienced in four patients having poor predicted postoperative respiratory function (% VC less than 60% and FEV1.0/p-VC less than 40%), but there were no operative deaths.