A case of long survival for rectal cancer with chemotherapies, for postoperative pulmonary lymphangitis carcinomatosa]

A 58-year-old man underwent a high anterior resection for rectal cancer in May, 2005.T he pathological finding was stage IIIa, and he therefore started taking UFT in August, 2005.H e had dyspnea in August, 2006, however, and his diagnosis was lymphangitis carcinomatosa of the lung.mFOLFOX6 was started in the same month.Although the dose was reduced because of side effects, chemotherapy was performed for 26 courses.In November, 2007, however, computed tomography(CT) showed that the lymphangitis carcinomatosa had worsened and that a mass lesion had appeared at the S8 segment of the liver.Therefore, FOLFIRI was started in December, 2007. After that, the lesions were stable disease.Bevacizumab was added in August, 2008, but the lung lesion had worsened by May, 2009, and the chemotherapy was therefore changed to CPT-11 and cetuximab.The lesion and his condition were gradually getting worse, however, and he was admitted to the hospital for dyspnea in January, 2010.H e died the following month.Although lymphangitis carcimonatosa causing colorectal cancer is very rare and known to have a poor prognosis, we experienced a case of about 41-months long survival.This case is reported together with some bibliographical comments here.