Primary Carcinoma of the Lung - Recent Advances in Surgery

Our plain-English summary of Primary Carcinoma of the Lung - Recent Advances in Surgery, by M. DeBakey, A. Ochsner, P.T. DeCamp (1952).

The study

• Authors: M. DeBakey, A. Ochsner, P.T. DeCamp
• Published: Surgery 32:877-891 November (1952)
• 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 1952 article reviewed published reports on primary carcinoma of the lung and set out the authors' own experience with 948 cases over a 16-year period, from Charity Hospital and private patients. It does not discuss asbestos or any other cause of lung cancer. In the authors' series, 89 per cent of patients were men. Cough was present in 90 per cent of cases and coughing up blood in 55 per cent. The delay between first symptoms and treatment averaged slightly over 1 year. Epidermoid carcinoma was the most common tissue type. Of the 948 patients, 332 (35 per cent) had the tumor surgically removed. Only 27 per cent of the operations were curative resections, with the cancer still confined to the lung; the rest were palliative. Five years after surgery, 19 per cent of resected patients were alive (10 per cent after palliative and 38 per cent after curative resections). Survival for the whole series at five years was 6 per cent. The authors supported periodic chest X-rays, perhaps every 6 to 12 months, for men over 40.

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: Review of the published literature combined with an analysis of the authors' own surgical case series
• Who was studied: 948 patients with primary carcinoma of the lung seen by the authors (Charity Hospital and private patients) over a 16-year period
• Main results:
  • Of the authors' 948 cases, 89 per cent were men
  • Cough was present in 90 per cent of the authors' cases
  • Coughing up blood (hemoptysis) occurred in 55 per cent of the authors' cases
  • The time from onset of symptoms to start of treatment averaged slightly over 1 year in the authors' cases
  • Among the authors' resected cases that had bronchoscopy, a positive biopsy was obtained in 121 (43 per cent)
  • In about a third of cases, a positive diagnosis could not be established except by exploratory operation
  • Epidermoid carcinoma was the most frequent tissue type in the authors' series (about one-half of cases)
  • 332 of the 948 patients (35 per cent of the series) had the tumor resected
  • Only 27 per cent of the operations could be classed as curative resections, in which the lesion was still confined to the lung; the others were palliative resections
  • Five-year survival among the authors' resected patients was 19 per cent
  • Five-year survival was 10 per cent for palliative resections and 38 per cent for curative resections
  • Five-year survival for the authors' entire series was 6 per cent
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that lung cancer should be considered a relatively common disease, especially in men over 40. They supported periodic chest X-ray examination in this group, perhaps every 6 to 12 months, to detect the disease in its early, symptom-free stage.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Carcinoma, Lung Cancer, Palliative Care, Chest X-Ray.

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