102 Background: Surgical resection is rarely indicated for pulmonary recurrence after curative gastrectomy for gastric cancer because most tumors recurred as multiple nodules or carcinomatous lymphangitis / pleuritis and prognosis is extremely poor. However, some investigators reported a sporadic case developing a solitary pulmonary metastasis which was surgically resected and resulted in a relatively favorable clinical outcome. The present study aimed to clarify contribution of surgery for solitary pulmonary recurrence to the long-term survival. Methods: We performed a systematic review of the literature by searching the words of “stomach”, “neoplasms”, “lung”, and “metastasis” in the Pubmed and Japanese ICHUSHI database, and analyzed the cases reporting on resection of solitary pulmonary metastasis after curative gastrectomy for gastric cancer together with our cases treated at our hospital. Overall survival was estimated by Kaplan-Meier method. Results: A total of 45 patients, 42 from a systematic review and 3 from our cases, were examined. Median age (range) was 67 years (31–84 years). Primary gastric cancer had the following characteristics; histologically differentiated type in 30 patients, undifferentiated type in 2, and unknown in 13 patients and tumor depth of T1 in 3, T2 in 6, T3 in 13, T4 in 9, and unknown in 6. Surgery for the primary gastric cancer was total gastrectomy in 30 patients and distal one in 15. The median (range) disease-free survival (DFS) between initial gastric resection and the detection of pulmonary metastasis was 28.0 months (5-128 months). Surgery for pulmonary tumor was lobectomies in 20 patients, segmentectomies in 3, wedge resections in 18, and unknown in 4. Only 4 patients received adjuvant chemotherapy after pulmonary resection. The median (range) follow-up period after pulmonary surgery was 20 months (3-98 months). The overall survival after pulmonary resection was 86% at 1-year, 62% at 3-year, and 56% at 5-year with the median (range) survival time of 67 months (3-98 months). Conclusions: Surgery for solitary pulmonary recurrence could contribute to the long-term survival.
A Case of Long-term Survival after Surgical Resection of Solitary Pulmonary Metastasis from Gastric Cancer