Results of a surgical resection of pulmonary metastasis from malignant head and neck tumor

There have been only a few reports about a surgical resection of pulmonary metastasis from malignant head and neck tumor. Here we investigate the survival after a pulmonary metastasectomy, and discuss the prognostic factors. We retrospectively reviewed 25 patients who underwent a pulmonary metastasectomy from malignant head and neck tumor at Kyushu University Hospital from 1981 through 2008. We assessed the five year overall survival by the Kaplan-Meier method and the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test using the Stat View software program. The three- or five-year overall survival after a metastasectomy was 53.3% and 50.0%, respectively. We investigated the clinicopathological prognostic factors including gender, age, histology, disease free interval, number or size of pulmonary metastatic tumors, and the operative procedure. Both age (older than 60 years) (P=0.0189) and pulmonary metastases from squamous cell carcinomas in either oral cavity or pharyngeal region (P=0.0002) were identified to be adverse prognostic factors. To obtain a long survival, a positive surgical resection is considered to be an effective and standard treatment for pulmonary metastasis from malignant head and neck tumor. It is also necessary, however, to elucidate fully the primary site and histology of such pulmonary metastasis.