Primary Bronchiogenic Carcinoma - An Analysis of 44 Cases Treated by Pneumonectomy

Our plain-English summary of Primary Bronchiogenic Carcinoma - An Analysis of 44 Cases Treated by Pneumonectomy, by A. Ochsner, J.L. Dixon, M. DeBakey (1944).

The study

• Authors: A. Ochsner, J.L. Dixon, M. DeBakey
• Published: Mississippi Doctor 22:29-33 July (1944)
• 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 1944 article described the authors' own patients with primary bronchiogenic carcinoma (lung cancer) treated by pneumonectomy, the surgical removal of a whole lung, at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans. It does not mention asbestos. In the 44 pneumonectomy cases, 37 patients were men and 7 were women. Their ages ranged from nineteen to sixty-seven, and the right lung was involved in 27. Spread of the cancer to the mediastinal lymph nodes was found in 23 patients and suspected in another 11. Cough was present in 39. On occupation, 27 had worked indoors and 17 outdoors, and the authors stated that occupation did not appear to predispose to the cancer in this group. The authors also reported on 48 total pneumonectomies they had performed. Of these, 12 patients died in hospital and 12 died after leaving hospital. Hospital deaths fell from 43.4 per cent in 23 cases before 1941 to 8 per cent in 25 cases since 1941. The authors concluded that this fall was due to better surgical technique. The scanned text is heavily damaged.

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: Case series: the authors' analysis of their own surgical cases, set alongside cases they had collected from the medical literature
• Who was studied: 44 patients with primary bronchiogenic carcinoma treated by pneumonectomy, from 90 lung cancer cases studied at the Charity Hospital, New Orleans. A later section reports on a separate tally of 48 total pneumonectomies the authors had performed, the first in 1936.
• Exposure: No asbestos or other fiber exposure is studied. For the 44 pneumonectomy patients, the only occupational information given is whether they worked indoors (27, 61.4 per cent) or out of doors (17, 38.6 per cent).
• Main results:
  • Of the 44 pneumonectomy patients, 37 (84.3 per cent, as printed) were men and 7 (15.7 per cent) were women.
  • Among the pneumonectomy patients, the youngest was nineteen and the eldest sixty-seven years old.
  • In the 44 pneumonectomy cases, the right lung was involved in 27 (61.4 per cent) and the left in 17 (38.6 per cent).
  • In the 44 pneumonectomy cases, metastases were found in the mediastinal lymph nodes in 23, suspected in an additional 11 (25 per cent), and absent in 10 (22.7 per cent).
  • Cough was present in 39 of the pneumonectomy patients (88.6 per cent).
  • Of 18 pneumonectomy patients who had a biopsy taken at bronchoscopy, the biopsy was positive in 14 (77.8 per cent).
  • Of the authors' 48 total pneumonectomies, 12 patients (25.0 per cent) died in the hospital and 12 (25.0 per cent) died after leaving the hospital.
  • Of 25 total pneumonectomies done since 1941, 17 patients (68.0 per cent) were living and 8 (32.0 per cent) were dead.
  • Hospital mortality was 43.4 per cent in the 23 cases operated on before 1941 and 8 per cent in the 25 cases operated on since 1941.
  • Of the 48 cases, 2 (4.2 per cent) had a ruptured bronchus, and an additional 6 (12.5 per cent) developed empyema (a pus-filled infection of the chest cavity) after the operation.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the fall in mortality was due to better surgical technique gained through experience.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Carcinoma, Pneumonectomy, Lung Cancer, Mediastinal Lymph Nodes.

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