Tumour growth rate and its relationship to prognosis in bronchiolo-alveolar and pulmonary adenocarcinoma.
Tumour growth rates and their effects on the survival of 26 patients with bronchioloalveolar or pulmonary adenocarcinomas were analysed following surgery. Twelve of the tumours were classified as bronchioloalveolar carcinomas, 7 were classed as mixed forms of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and 7 were classed as adenocarcinomas. The mean doubling time was 300.1 days for the bronchioloalveolar carcinomas, 288.4 days for the mixed forms of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and 224.6 days for the adenocarcinomas. The mixed forms of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma had poorer prognoses than bronchioloalveolar carcinomas. They also differed from adenocarcinomas in that metastases were more frequent. No correlation between tumour doubling times and patient survival was established in the present series, nor did tumour doubling times correlate with the occurrence of metastases in regional lymph nodes. The actual survival times were similar to, or shorter than, predicted survival times in most of the patients who died from their pulmonary carcinoma. In contrast, they were considerably longer than predicted survival times in long-term survivors and in half of the patients who did not die from pulmonary carcinoma. This finding indicates that predicted survival times could allow more objective evaluation of the results of treatment of pulmonary carcinoma.
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D002282:Adenocarcinoma, Bronchiolo-Alveolar / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D000368:Aged; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies