Original article: general thoracicPersonal Experience in Surgical Management of Pulmonary Pleomorphic Carcinoma
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
From the beginning of 1999 to the end of 2002, 513 patients underwent surgical resection for primary lung carcinoma at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Milan. Of these, 20 cases were primary pleomorphic carcinoma. The 20 patients with pleomorphic carcinoma were registered for age, sex, presenting symptoms, smoking habits, and stage. There were 14 men and 6 women. The mean age at diagnosis was 60.3 years (range, 43 to 76 years); 80% of patients smoked.
Eighteen patients presented
Results
Clinical data were tabulated according to histologic findings, pathologic tumor-node-metastasis staging, and clinical disease behavior (Table 1). The tumors ranged from 2.1 to 9 cm. Nineteen lesions were intraparenchymal, and 8 showed intrabronchial components in the tumor.
Twenty cases of primary pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma were identified. Six cases had identifiable epithelial components. Fourteen cases were classified as pure pleomorphic carcinomas consisting only of spindle and giant
Comment
Pulmonary pleomorphic cell carcinoma is a rare malignant lung tumor. This rarity has made its classification confusing and its diagnosis difficult. Before 1999 this tumor was classified as a variant of squamous cell carcinoma. In 1999 the WHO reclassified the pleomorphic carcinoma and set widely adopted criteria. According to these criteria, pleomorphic carcinoma is now considered a peculiar type of lung carcinoma. We reported our clinical experience with pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma to add
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the valuable collaboration of Alberto G. L. Luporini, MD, Director of the Division of Medical Oncology, Policlinico San Donato Institute, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy.
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