Pulmonary Resection for Metachronous Lung Cancer Following Contralateral Pneumonectomy

Thomas Tsitsias, Prity Gupta, Kelvin W. Lau, Nicholas Harvey, Sridhar Rathinam

Department of Cardiothoracic Anesthesia, Uni- versity Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester, UK..
Department of Thoracic Surgery, University Hospitals of Leicester, Leicester, UK.

DOI: 10.4236/ojts.2013.31004                

Abstract

Patients who undergo pneumonectomy for lung cancer are at risk of recurrent disease and metachronous tumours in the remaining lung. Establishing a diagnosis can be difficult as biopsy may induce a pneumothorax, whilst resection is limited by remaining lung function. However, pneumonectomy should not be a contraindication to further lung resection. We report two cases of lung cancer resection in the residual lung 6 and 11 years following pneumonectomy respectively. A limited resection can be safely performed for a new pulmonary parenchymal lesion on a background of a previous pneumonectomy.

Keywords

Metachronous Lung Cancer; Intermittent Apnea; Limited Resection

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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