[Long-term survival after surgical resection of a cancer of unknown primary site-a case report].

We report a case of long-term survival after combination chemotherapy and surgical resection of a cancer of unknown primary site[ CUPs]. A septuagenarian female was identified as having high blood levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) during follow-up monitoring of asthma. Endoscopy and imaging studies including computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET)-CT revealed a malignant lymph node adjacent to the abdominal aorta; however, no other lesion was detected. Therefore, we performed CT-guided biopsy and diagnosed the lesion to be a lymph node metastasis of poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. As we considered this as a systemic disease, the patient received 2 courses of combination chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil( 5-FU)/cisplatin( CDDP) and achieved a partial response (PR). Later, the patient received S-1 therapy as second-line chemotherapy and S-1/irinotecan( CPT-11) as third-line chemotherapy in an outpatient clinic. However, the tumor continued to grow, and therefore, we decided to perform surgical resection. Histopathological examination of the resected specimen yielded a diagnosis of metastatic adenocarcinoma of the lymph node. The patient has been well without any signs of recurrence for more than 9 years since surgery. As CUPs is generally associated with poor prognosis, this case raises the possibility that combination therapy might improve convalescence.