Evaluation of Pulmonary Artery Angioplasty for Lung Cancer Surgery: A Com­parison with Pneumonectomy

We performed pulmonary artery angioplasty in 19 patients with lung cancer. The procedure consists of segmental or wedge resrection of the infiltrated pulmonary artery stem followed by reconstruction to avoid pneumonectomy and preserve pulmonary function. Among these cases "double sleeve resection" was performed in 10 cases. The 5-year survival of the angioplasty patients was poor at a rate of 11％, but not significantly different from the survival rates for those patients who underwent bronchoplasy alone or pneumonectomy. A promising prognosis may be expected in cases with N0 and N1 lymph node metastasis. However, this procedure may not replace pneumonectmy in patients with intact pulmonary function.