Groves Lk

Surgery for metastatic neoplastic disease in the lung; review of 38 cases.

M T A S T A T I C neoplastic disease in the lung ordinarily is not a surgical problem. The consideration of surgery arises only under exceptional circumstances. The lungs are a common site of metastatic neoplasms. This frequency is readily explainable on anatomic and physiologic bases. Roentgenography offers unique ability to screen the lungs for disease of many types, and has certainly served to emphasize the frequency of pulmonary metastatic neoplastic disease. The routine use of roentgenograms of the chest in the followup of patients having cancer reveals a significant number of metastases, and also the great increase in the use of periodic survey films brings to light a large group of pulmonary neoplasms, a number of which turn out to be metastatic from latent primary tumors. Also a diffuse pulmonary lesion may on occasion prove to represent atypical neoplastic disease.