Carcinoma of the Lung

Our plain-English summary of Carcinoma of the Lung, by M. DeBakey, A. Ochsner (1940).

The study

• Authors: M. DeBakey, A. Ochsner
• Published: Tri-State Medical Journal p2524-2527 July (1940)
• 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 1940 article by two surgeons at Tulane University in New Orleans was a general review of primary carcinoma of the lung. It covered how often the disease occurs, suspected causes, pathology, symptoms, diagnosis and surgical treatment. It does not mention asbestos. Much of its data came from published reports and from the authors' own earlier analyses of cases collected from the medical literature. In a collected series of 8,555 cases, 78.9 per cent were male. In 4,307 collected cases, 59.5 per cent occurred between ages 40 and 60, and about 40 per cent were younger than 50. The authors listed suspected causes including lung infections, irritating gases, radioactivity in the Schneeberg mines and tobacco. They reported a significant relationship between rising lung cancer in the United States and increased tobacco production from 1920 to 1936. Of the authors' own 15 patients who had surgery, 7 recovered and 8 (53.3 per cent) died. The authors held that surgical removal was the only curative treatment and that removing the whole lung was the only rational operation.

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 of primary lung carcinoma, drawing on the published literature and on the authors' earlier analyses of collected case series and United States mortality statistics
• Who was studied: Cases of primary lung carcinoma collected from the medical literature (series of various sizes, for example 8,555, 4,307 and 4,732 cases), plus 15 of the authors' own surgical patients; the authors worked at Tulane University, New Orleans
• Exposure: Asbestos is not discussed. The article lists suspected causes of lung cancer: influenza and other lung infections (tuberculosis, syphilis, bronchiectasis), irritating gases (war gas, motor exhaust, gases from tarred roads), radioactive particles, arsenic and cobalt in the Schneeberg mines, and tobacco smoking, which the authors emphasized.
• Main results:
  • In a collected series of 8,555 cases, 78.9 per cent were male
  • In 4,307 collected cases, 59.5 per cent occurred between ages 40 and 60 years
  • In the same 4,307 collected cases, 10.7 per cent occurred between ages 30 and 40, and about 40 per cent of cases were younger than 50
  • In a collected series of 4,732 cases, the right lung was involved in 58.3 per cent and the left in 41.6 per cent
  • For the period 1920 to 1936, the authors described a significant relationship between the increased incidence of lung cancer in the United States and increased tobacco production
  • Among necropsies at Charity Hospital, New Orleans, during the past year, lung carcinoma occurred more often than stomach carcinoma
  • Of the authors' own 15 operated cases, 7 recovered and 8 (53.3 per cent) died
• The authors' conclusion: The authors stated that surgical removal is generally agreed to be the only curative treatment, and in their view total removal of the involved lung (total pneumonectomy) was the only rational procedure

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Carcinoma, Pathology, Lung Cancer.

Browse return to medical research.