Primary Cancer of the Lung: Analysis of 118 Cases

Among 139 cases of lung cancer diagnosed at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Seoul National University Hospital during the 15 year period from January, 1957 till October, 1971, the 118 cases whose clinical course and various data were accurately recorded were reviewed in this study. The obtained data are as follows. 1) Analysis on the age-incidence of the 118 cases showed that 91. 4%(108 cases) were over 41 years of age and male femal ratio was 6.3:1, showing remarkable male perponderance. 2) The average duration of clinical symptoms prior to the first examination at the hospital was 22 weeks and the most frequent chief complaints on the inital visit was coughing in 72.0% . 3) Thoracotomy was performed in 69 cases (58.4%) of the 118 cases and rescetion was performed in 41 cases (34.7%). Among the inoperable cases, metastasis to cervical Iymphodes was noticed in 20 cases and metastasis to supraclavicular lyrnphnodes was noticed in 17 cases. 4) Histopathological diagnosis was possible in 103 of the 118 cases and 46.6% of the histologically diagnosed cases were found to be squamous cell carinomas