Background: Surgical resection is an important modality in the treatment of pulmonary metastases from various solid tumors. We analyzed 37 patients who underwent surgical treatments of pulmonary metastases in our hospital from 1996 to 2005. Material and Method: Age, sex, disease free interval, operative procedure, the number of pulmonary metastases, and lymphatic metastasis were investigated with admission and operative records, and pathologic reports. Actuarial survival and comparisons between each survival rate were calculated according to Kaplan- Meier method and log-rank test, respectively. Result: Complete resections were carried out in 34 of 37 patients. The primary tumor was carcinoma in 25 cases, sarcoma in 10, and others in 2. The number of pulmonary metastases was 1 in 25 cases and 2 or more in 12 cases. 3-year and 5-year survival rates after complete resection were 50.5% and 35.9%, respectively. 3-year and 5-year survival rates for carcinoma were 64.5% and 45.6%, respectively, and 3-year survival rate for sarcoma was 17.5%. Otherwise, none of the operative procedures, the number of pulmonary metastases, lymphatic metastasis, adjunctive therapy and the disease free interval in the case of carcinoma significantly affected the survival rates. Conclusion: Complete resection of pulmonary metastasis in well selected patients allows high long term survival rate with low mortality and morbidity. Long-term follow up and randomized prospective studies were necessary to determine the prognostic factors of pulmonary metastases after surgical resection.

Keywords: Metastasectomy, Neoplasm metastasis, Survival analysis