Limited and radical resection for tracheal and bronchopulmonary carcinoid tumour. Report on 227 cases.

Bronchopulmonary carcinoid tumours occur at all levels from the trachea to the lung periphery. Over a 20-year period. 227 patients with carcinoid tumour underwent thoracotomy. The age at operation ranged from 14 to 79 years. Haemoptysis, chronic cough, recurrent infection and wheeze were the most common symptoms; 24% of patients were asymptomatic. The primary tumour was within the trachea or the main, lobar or segmental bronchi in 190 patients (83.7%). A variety of surgical procedures were employed: pneumonectomy in 32 patients; lobectomy and bilobectomy including bronchial sleeve resection in 144; segmentectomy in 18; wedge excision in 19; bronchial sleeve only in 5; carinal resection in 2; tracheal resection in 4 and bronchotomy in 3 cases. There was only 1 hospital death in the 227 patients (mortality: 0.44%). Survival at 5 and 10 years in patients with benign carcinoid was 97.5% and 95%, respectively. In patients with the atypical form it was 41.2%. The peripheral carcinoid was usually totally removed by an ample wedge excision or segmental resection and the central bronchial carcinoid by sleeve resection with lobectomy rather than pneumonectomy. The atypical variant, because of the frequency of lymphatic involvement, should be treated as a bronchial carcinoma by radical resection.