[An evaluation of pathologic T3 lung cancer].

A total of 35 pT3 patients of lung cancer underwent pulmonary resection from 1983 to 1997 in our department. The overall five-year survival rate of the 35 cases was 35.8%. There was no significant difference between the five-year survival rate of squamous cell carcinoma and that of adenocarcinoma. A superior outcome was observed for cases of curative resection compared with that of non-curative resection. Five-year survival rates of 19 patients with N0 disease, 16 patients with N1 or N2 disease were 46.6% and 22.2% respectively (p < 0.05). There was no significant differences among the survival rates according to the site of tumor invasion. We concluded that the long-term survival of patients with pathologic T3 disease critically depended on the lymph node state and completeness of resection.