Cancer of the Lung: Recognition and Management

Our plain-English summary of Cancer of the Lung: Recognition and Management, by A. Ochsner, Jr, A. Ochsner (1966).

The study

• Authors: A. Ochsner, Jr, A. Ochsner
• Published: p1411-1424 (1966)
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This 1966 article by two authors was a clinical overview of lung (bronchogenic) cancer, not an original study, and it did not mention asbestos. The authors described the disease's symptoms, the tests used to diagnose it, how patients were evaluated for surgery, and treatment by surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. They wrote that it was primarily a disease of smokers, and that eighty per cent of epidermoid and undifferentiated carcinomas, including oat cell carcinoma, were probably caused by cigarette smoking. They reported that sputum cytology gave the only positive diagnosis before surgery in about one-fourth of patients, and that bronchoscopy diagnosed only one-third of cases. Of patients explored surgically, only two-thirds had tumors that could be removed, and seventy-five per cent of those removals were considered palliative. They gave a general cure rate of 6.5 per cent and a five-year survival rate of 15 per cent after lung resection. They wrote that chemotherapy did not seem to prolong life significantly. The authors concluded that any significant decrease in deaths must come through prevention, chiefly by eliminating cigarette smoking.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Narrative clinical review (overview of recognition and management of lung cancer); no original study data
• Who was studied: No study population; the article discusses patients with bronchogenic (lung) cancer in general, with reference to the United States
• Exposure: Cigarette smoking is the cause discussed; asbestos is not mentioned
• Main results:
  • Sputum cytology provided the only positive preoperative diagnosis in approximately one-fourth of patients with bronchogenic carcinoma
  • Only one-third of cases of bronchogenic carcinoma were diagnosed by bronchoscopy
  • Of patients explored surgically, only two-thirds had resectable lesions, and seventy-five per cent of these resections were considered palliative
  • General cure rate in bronchogenic cancer given as 6.5 per cent
  • Five-year survival rate with pulmonary resection given as 15 per cent
  • Patients whose lung cancer was not resected seldom lived more than three years after diagnosis
  • Chemotherapy did not seem to prolong life significantly
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that any significant decrease in deaths from bronchogenic cancer must come through prevention, and that eliminating cigarette smoking could theoretically reduce its incidence

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Bronchogenic Carcinoma, Chemotherapy, Carcinoma, Small Cell Lung Cancer, Sputum, Cytology, Bronchoscopy, Palliative Care.

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