Original article
General thoracic
Is There a Role for Pulmonary Metastasectomy With a Curative Intent in Patients With Metastatic Urinary Transitional Cell Carcinoma?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.athoracsur.2011.03.097Get rights and content

Background

Systemic chemotherapy remains the standard treatment for metastatic transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the urinary tract. For pulmonary metastases of several malignancies, surgical therapy for selected patients has become a treatment of choice to achieve cure. However, data on pulmonary metastasectomy for urinary TCC remain limited.

Methods

From 1990 to 2005, 2,288 patients who underwent pulmonary metastasectomy for all types of malignancy were registered in the Metastatic Lung Tumor Study Group of Japan. Of these, we extracted 32 patients with TCC who underwent pulmonary metastasectomy with a curative intent from the database. We investigated the surgical outcomes of the patients, focusing on long-term progression-free survival (PFS) and modified PFS as a parameter for achieving a cure. In modified PFS, when the disease-free status had continued for longer than two years after repeated resection at the last follow-up, the first recurrence was not considered as an event.

Results

The five-year overall survival and PFS rates were 50% and 26%, respectively. Including 3 patients who underwent a second pulmonary metastasectomy for recurrence, 9 patients survived without recurrence for more than 5 years, resulting in a modified five-year PFS rate of 40%. Multivariate analysis revealed that a pulmonary metastasis greater than 3 cm was a significantly poor prognostic factor. The modified five-year PFS rate for patients with a pulmonary metastasis smaller than 3 cm in diameter was 65%.

Conclusions

Pulmonary metastasectomy may have a curative role in the treatment of metastatic TCC in appropriately selected patients, especially those with a small solitary pulmonary metastasis.

Section snippets

Material and Methods

From January 1990 to December 2005, 2,288 cases of pulmonary metastasectomy with curative intent were registered with the Metastatic Lung Tumor Study Group of Japan. We extracted 34 cases of TCC from the database. Two cases were excluded from analysis because of incomplete data. Finally, we analyzed 32 cases. The Tochigi Cancer Center Institutional Review Board approved this study, and waived the requirement of patient consent.

Clinical and pathological data included the following: patient age,

Results

Patient characteristics are shown in Table 1. The majority of the patients had solitary pulmonary metastasis (81%). Lobectomy was performed in 15 patients and limited resection in 17 patients. The primary reason for applying lobectomy was a large tumor size. The other reasons included a central location and misdiagnosis as primary lung cancer. Perioperative systemic chemotherapy was applied in 16 patients. The second pulmonary metastasectomy was conducted in 3 patients. The surgical procedures

Comment

Pulmonary metastasectomy has become a standard treatment for selected patients with several malignancies, including colorectal and renal cell carcinoma. However, pulmonary metastasectomy for patients with TCC is still controversial. The first case of pulmonary metastasectomy for TCC was reported by Orteza and colleagues in 1971 [6]. The patient was reported to have survived for more than five years. Thereafter, Cowles and colleagues [7] reported a median survival of five years in 6 patients

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