[Results of surgical treatment of pulmonary carcinoma in patients over 60 years of age].
The authors submit an analysis of patients operated in 1972-1982 at the First Surgical Clinic, Faculty of General Medicine, Charles University Prague. The group of patients was divided into those under 65 years and those above this age. The effect of the patients' age on the postoperative course was investigated, the survival of the two groups was compared, the causes of early postoperative deaths, the extent of the disease and histological type of tumour were evaluated. In was revealed that the risk of early postoperative death within one month is greater in patients above 65 years where it is 19.6%, as compared with 11.3% in the younger group. The risk increases in particular in patients above 70 years where it is as high as 26%. There is no fundamental difference in the causes of death between the two groups. The highest percentage of operated patients dies from embolism (40% and 42% in the patients above 65 years), the second place is held by inflammatory pulmonary complications which are somewhat more frequent in patients of the younger age group (24% as compared with 15% in the older patients). The survival curves of patients who had a radical operation in stage I and II of the neoplastic disease are almost identical and there is no significant difference in the survival of the two groups. In the group under 65 years 30% survive five years, in the older group 25%. The ratio of differentiated types of lung cancer, i.e. adenocarcinoma and epidermoid carcinoma is equal in both groups, contrary to small-cell carcinoma which was recorded in 6% in the older patients, as compared with 15% in the younger ones.