Bronchial stump infiltration after lung cancer surgery. Retrospective study of a series of 2994 patients.

The incidence of lung cancer has been increasing in developed countries since the mid-1990s. The main objective of this study is to determine if bronquial stump infiltration can affect survival in patients with lung cancer. For this purpose, we differentiate between carcinoma 'in situ' and invasive carcinoma. We included patients suffering from non-small cell lung cancer who underwent thoracothomy as treatment. The total number of patients was 2994. In this study, 80 patients out of the 2994 had bronchial stump affection. Eight patients were excluded thus a total of 72 patients were included, 52 of them had carcinoma 'in situ' and 20 invasive carcinoma. The global survival was 25 months. Patients with carcinoma 'in situ' had a median survival of 25 months as opposed to 21 months in patients with invasive carcinoma. We only found statistical significance when we compared the histology with the type of bronchial stump infiltration. We did not observe statistical significance in survival between carcinoma 'in situ' and invasive carcinoma bronchial stump infiltration (P=0.094). The only survival predictor variable is histology (adenocarcinoma), P=0.0001.