Lobectomy with sleeve resection in the treatment of tumors of the bronchus.

We evaluated the results of right upper lobectomy with a sleeve resection of the right main bronchus in 50 patients with a bronchial neoplasm. Four patients (8 percent) died during surgery or postoperatively. Eight of the 22 patients who underwent surgery for carcinoma between the years 1960 and 1974 had tumor-positive hilar lymph nodes. They died as a result of subsequent extension of the resected carcinoma. Fourteen of the 22 patients had no lymph node metastasis and nine of them (64 percent) were alive after five years without detectable recurrence. The finding of positive hilar lymph nodes contraindicates sleeve resection. In these cases, when pneumonectomy is impossible from a functional point of view, sleeve resection is to be regarded as a palliative procedure.