J.Jpn. Surg. Soc.. 101(12): 840-846, 2000

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Feature topic

HISTORY AND ADVANCES IN THE SURGICAL TREATMENT OF LUNG CANCER

In 1933, Graham successfully performed one-stage pneumonectomy for lung cancer. Four years later, Ozawa (Japan) also performed pneumoenctomy for lung cancer. Unfortunately, progress in the surgical treatment of lung cancer in our country was interrupted by World War II. After the war, the first report of resection in 3 cases of lung cancer was published by lshikawa in 1949.
In the 1950s, poorer surgical outcomes were reported from Japan in terms of resection rate or long-term survival compared with those in Western countries. However, since the 1960s, there has been great progress in Japan in the treatment of lung cancer, due to the marked increase in the number of lung cancer patients, developments in endoscopy and imaging devices, and also in surgical procedures such as anatomical lung resection, lymph node dissection, combined resection of adjacent organs, and bronchoplastic surgery.
Surgical mortality was over 20% in the early years. However, it has currently decreased to a few percent. The long-term survival rate for resected lung cancer patients has improved remarkably in recent years. Among stage IIIA cases, the optimal surgical outcome is achieved in the group undergoing chest wall resection for T3 N0 M0 disease. However, patients with IIIA-N2 disease generally have a poor surgical outcome. Therefore, trials of induction therapy are being carried out at many institutions.

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