Brain: The Common Site of Relapse in Patients with Pancoast or Superior Sulcus Tumors:

[A 67-year old man with right arm paresthesias]

A 63-year-old man was admitted to the emergency room with chest pain. He had experienced a painful, tingling sensation in the right arm for the last three months, as well as pain in the right scapula. ECG and standard blood samples were normal. An X-ray of the thorax showed a mass in the superior sulcus on the right side. Further investigation with CT and MRI identified a large tumour, about 6 cm in size, with infiltrative growth involving the upper costae. Biopsy revealed a non-small cell carcinoma of the lung. The patient underwent a tri-modal treatment regimen with induction chemotherapy (two courses of cisplatin and etopside) and concomitant radiotherapy (50 Gy in 2 Gy fractions) before a right upper lobectomy was performed. 1 year after surgery the patient is alive, with no signs of recurrent or metastatic disease. Pancoast tumours are an infrequent subtype of lung cancers. Diagnostic delay is not uncommon. The peripheral location of the tumour generates symptoms that may easily be attributed to other causes, such as those of a musculoskeletal origin. Pre-operative chemo-radiotherapy has showed improved survival outcomes compared to pre-operative radiotherapy alone.

Preoperative concomitant chemo-radiotherapy in superior sulcus tumour: A mono-institutional experience

Superior sulcus tumour (SST) is an uncommon neoplasia whose optimal treatment remains controversial. Usually resected after induction RT or treated with definitive chemo-radiotherapy, it has recently aroused more interest because of preoperative chemo-radiotherapy. Treatment consisted of a platinum-based chemotherapy: carboplatin AUC 5 on days 1 and 22, combined with mitomycin-C 8 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 22, and vinblastine 4 mg/m(2) on days 1, 8, 22 and 29 (MVC) from 1994 to 1999, or combined with navelbine 25mg/m(2) on days 1, 8, 22 and 29 (NC), from 2000 to 2007. Radiotherapy was administered 5 days/week, 30 Gy in 10 fractions on days 22-35 (from 1994 to 1996), or 44 Gy in 22 fractions on days 22-52 (from 1997 to 2007). SURGERY was planned after 2-3 weeks since the completion of radiotherapy. Since 1994, 37 pts were treated with induction chemo-radiotherapy, 1 with induction radiotherapy only. Induction chemotherapy: 16 pts had MVC (43%) and 21 NC (57%); induction radiotherapy: 7 patients treated with MVC had 30 Gy/10F, 9 had 44 Gy/22F; all the patients treated with NC had 44 Gy/22F, but 2 of them did not complete radiotherapy because of early death (after 16 Gy/8F) and toxicity (after 38 Gy/19F). Grade 3-4 haematological toxicity of induction chemo-radiotherapy was found in 13 patients (35%); the most frequent non-haematological toxicities were constipation and oesophagitis. One complete, 18 partial and 8 minimal responses/stable disease were observed. Moreover, 1 progression disease and 1 early death occurred.

SURGERY

30 upper lobectomies (17 right, 13 left) and 4 segmentectomies, with chest wall resections, were performed (89% resection rate); 4 pts were not operated. Radical resections were achieved in 74% of the patients, with 5 pathologic complete remissions at resection. Twenty-seven patients (71%) had improvement of shoulder/arm pain. Median progression-free survival was 64 weeks and median survival was 148 weeks. The 5-year overall and progression-free survivals were 40% and 29%, respectively. In the multimodality treatment of SST, concurrent carboplatin-based chemotherapy plus radiotherapy were active and feasible without major toxicities. This resulted in high resectability rate and favourable progression-free and overall survival rates.