title: Surgical resection of pulmonary metastasis from renal cell carcinoma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Renal cell carcinoma has shown less response to systemic therapies including chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy than other cancers. Surgery has therefore become an important treatment tool. The protocol for treatment is the same for pulmonary metastasis of renal cell carcinoma. We performed surgery for pulmonary metastatic renal cell carcinomas and analyzed the results.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively analyzed 15 patients who had undergone pulmonary metastasectomy from renal cell carcinoma at our hospital from January 2005 to December 2009.
  
  
  RESULTS
  No patients had extrathoracic metastatsis. The mean age was 60.2 years (range 35~73). There were 12 male and 3 female patients. The number of synchronous and metachronous patients were 8 and 7, respectively. The mean survival times of synchronous and metachronous patients were 32.6 and 42.9 months, respectively. 6 patients had single lesions and 9 patients had multiple (more than 3) lesions. The surgical procedures included wedge resection (10), lobectomy (2), wedge resection with segmentectomy (2), and segmentectomy (1). Median observation and survival time were 54.1 and 34.9 months. The 1-year and 3-year survival rates were 80% and 50%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Pulmonary resection for pulmonary metastatic renal cell carcinoma was found to be a safe and effective treatment modality when complete resection was performed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Jun
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jae-Kil
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Young-Pil
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Wang