Long-term survival and cure in lung cancer surgery.

From 1942 to July 1955, 265 lung cancer patients were resected. There were 51 hospital deaths and 214 patients were discharged. All survivors have been followed-up for at least 25 years, and 8 are still alive--one patient 30 years after pneumonectomy. Survival after 5, 10, 15 and 25 years were 32%, 22%, 15%, 10% and 5%, excluding hospital deaths. A survival curve for a Danish population of the same age and sex has been calculated and used for construction of an adjusted survival curve, describing the survival from lung cancer patients divided by survival of general population multiplied by 100. Cure time is obtained when the adjusted survival percentage is constant. This happened 14 years after surgery and no patient with demonstrable lymph node metastasis survived cure time. Cure rate was a little more than 20%. Lung cancer patients can live to be old after either lobectomy or pneumonectomy.