• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2013

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the survival rate of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were preoperatively diagnosed with a negative N2 lymph node, but postoperatively confirmed as a positive N2 node based on a pathological evaluation. Materials and Methods: The hospital records of 248 patients from 1994 to 2009 with resected primary NSCLC who were preoperatively diagnosed with negative N2 lymph node, were retrospectively reviewed. Of these, after surgery, there were 148 (59.7%) patients with pathological N0, 54 (21.8%) with pathological N1 and 46 (18.5%) with pathological N2. Results: The median follow-up period was 24 months (range, 1 to 132 months). The 5-year disease free survival rates were 60% in pN0, 44% in pN1, and 29% in pN2. The 5-year overall survival rates were 63.1% in pN0, 51.9% in pN1, and 33.5% in pN2. There were no statistically significant differences between pN1 and pN2 (p=0.326 and p=0.106, respectively). Thirty-three (71.7%) of the 46 pN2 patients had single-zone metastasis, and 13 patients (28.3%) had multiple-zone metastases over the two nodal zone metastasis. There were no statistical differences in the 5-year disease free survival rate and the 5-year overall survival rates between the two groups. Conclusion: The 5-year disease free survival and the overall survival rate of the patients with unsuspected N2 disease were statistically similar with that of the patients with pathological N1 disease. There was no statistically significant difference between the patients with a single-zone metastasis and a multiple zone metastasis.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.91-98
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• 1994

Purpose: Despite apparently complete resection of cancer of the rectum, local recurrence rate was high. Radiation therapy has been used either alone or in combination with chemotherapy as an adjunct to surgery to reduce the risk of recurrence. This study was designed to evaluate the prognostic factors, survival rate and local recurrence rate of the rectal cancer who had received postoperative radiation therapy by retrospective analysis. Method: From 1982 to 1990, 63 patients with cancer of the rectum surgically staged as B2 or C disease received postoperative adjuvant radiation therapy after curative resection of tumor for cure. Postoperative radiation therapy was given to the whole pelvis(mean dose: 5040 cGy in 5-6weets) and perineum was included in irradiated field in case of abdominoperineal resection. Results: Three-year actuarial survival rate was 73.2$ \% $ overall, 87.7$ \% $ in stage B2+3 and 62.9$ \% $ in stage C2+3. Three-year disease-free survival rate was 69.5$ \% $ overall, 87.7$ \% $ in stage B2+3 and 56.8$ \% $ in stage C2+3, Three-year disease-free survival rate in anterior resection was 77.8$ \% $ and 44.4$ \% $ in abdominoperineal resection. The local recurrence rate was 15.9$ \% $ and distant failure rate was 20.6$ \% $. Severe late complication was small bowel obstruction in 6 patients and surgery was required in 4 patients(6.3$ \% $). The prognostic factors were stage(p=0.0221) and method of surgery(p= 0.0414) (anterior resection vs abdominoperineal resection). Conclusion: This study provides evidence supporting the use of postoperative radiation therapy for reducing the local recurrence rate in patients who have had curative resection of rectal cancer with involvement of perirectal fat or regional nodes or both(stage B2 and C).

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.131-140
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• 2019

Background: The purposes of this study were to evaluate the appropriateness of the stage migration of stage IIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the seventh edition of the tumor, node, and metastasis classification for lung cancer to stage IIB lung cancer in the eighth edition, and to identify prognostic factors in patients with eighth-edition stage IIB disease. Methods: Patients with eighth-edition stage IIB disease were subclassified into those with seventh-edition stage IIA disease and those with seventh-edition stage IIB disease, and their recurrence-free survival and disease-specific survival rates were compared. Risk factors for recurrence after curative resection were identified in all included patients. Results: Of 122 patients with eighth-edition stage IIB NSCLC, 101 (82.8%) had seventh-edition stage IIA disease and 21 (17.2%) had seventh-edition stage IIB disease. Nonsignificant differences were observed in the 5-year recurrence-free survival rate and the 5-year disease-specific survival rate between the patients with seventh-edition stage IIA disease and those with seventh-edition stage IIB disease. Visceral pleural invasion was a significant risk factor for recurrence in patients with eighth-edition stage IIB NSCLC. Conclusion: The stage migration from seventh-edition stage IIA NSCLC to eighth-edition stage IIB NSCLC was appropriate in terms of oncological outcomes. Visceral pleural invasion was the only prognostic factor in patients with eighth-edition stage IIB NSCLC.

• The Journal of the Korean bone and joint tumor society
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.200-204
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• 1995

Twenty three rhabdomyosarcoma patients who were registered in Korea Cancer Center Hospital from Mar. 1985 to Apr. 1994 were analysed in the aspect of treatment and survival. Thirteen cases were male and 10 female. Average age was 29.5 years(range 1 to 66). Locations of the tumor were as follows: 13 in lower extremity, 6 in upper extremity and 4 in trunk. According to the UICC classification, stage II b was 1 case, stage III a 4, stage III b 10, stage IV a 3 and stage IV b 5. In histological categories, embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma was 7 cases, alveolar 7, pleomorphic 7 and undetermined 2. Average follow up period was 35.3 months(1 tk 7.5 years). Ten cases were continuous disease free, 3 no evidence of disease, 3 alive with disease and 7 died of disease at final follow up. Kaplan-Meier's actuarial 5-year survival rate was 60.3% and 5-year continuous disease free survival rate was 31.4%, Surgical margin was an important factor in local tumor control. Although there was no definite statistical significance, our results suggest chemotherapy and radiation therapy have meaningful roles in reducing local recurrence and improving survival.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.257-264
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• 2000

Purpose: For early stage non-small-cell lung cancer, surgical resection is the treatment of choice. But when the patients are not able to tolerate it because of medical problem and when refuse surgery, radiation therapy is considered an acceptable alternative. We report on the treatment results and the effect of achieving local control of primary tumors on survival end points, and analyze factors that may influence survival and local control. Materials and Method : We reviewed the medical records of 32 patients with medically inoperable non-small cell lung cancer treated at our institution from June, 1987 through June, 1997. All patients had a pathologic diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer and were not candidate for surgical resection because of either patients refusal (4), old age (2), lung problem (21), chest wail invasion (3) and heart problems (3). In 8 patients, there were more than 2 problems. The median age of the patients was 68 years (ranging from 60 to 86 years). Histologic cell type included souamous (24), adenocarcinoma (6) and unclassiried squamous cell (2). The clinical stages of the patients were 71 in 5, 72 in 25, 73 in 2 patients. Initial tumor size was 3.0 cm in 11, between 3.0 cm and 5.0 cm in 13 and more than 5.0 cm in 8 patients. Ail patients had taken chest x-rays, chest CT, abdomen USG and bone scan. Radiotherapy was delivered using 6 MV or 10 MV linear accelerators. The doses of primary tumor were the ranging from 54.0 Gy to 68.8 Gy (median; 61.2 Gy). The duration of treatment was from 37 days through 64 days (median; 0.5 days) and there was no treatment interruption except 1 patient due to poor general status. In 12 patients, concomitant boost technique was used. There were no neoadjuvant or adjuvant treatments such as surgery or chemotherapy. The period of follow-up was ranging from 2 months through 93 months (median; 23 months). Survival was measured from the date radiation therapy was initiated. Results : The overall survival rate was 44.6$\%$ at 2 years and 24.5$\%$ at 5 years, with the median survival time of 23 months. of the 25 deaths, 7 patients died of intercurrent illness, and cause-specific survival rate was 61.0$\%$ at 2 years and 33.5$\%$ at 5 years. The disease-free survival rate was 38.9$\%$ at 2 years and 28.3$\%$ at 5 years. The local-relapse-free survival rate was 35.1$\%$, 28.1$\%$, respectively. On univariate analysis, tumor size was significant variable of overall survival (p=0.0015, 95$\%$ C.1.; 1.4814-5.2815), disease-free survival (P=0.0022, 95$\%$ C.1., 1.4707-5.7780) and local-relapse-free survival (p=0.0015, 95$\%$ C.1., 1.2910- 4.1197). 7 stage was significant variable of overall survival (p=0.0395, 95$\%$ C.1.; 1.1084-55.9112) and had borderline significance on disease-free survival (p=0.0649, 95$\%$ C.1.; 0.8888-50.7123) and local-relapse-free survival (p=0.0582, 95$\%$ C,1.; 0.9342-52.7755). On multivariate analysis, tumor size had borderline significance on overall survival (p=0.6919, 955 C.1., 0.9610-5.1277) and local-relapse-free survival ( p=0.0585, 95$\%$ C.1.; 0.9720-4.9657). Tumor size was also significant variable of disease-free survival (p=0.0317, 95% C.1.; 1.1028-8.4968). Conclusion : Radical radiotherapy is an effective treatment for small (71 or f3 cm) tumors and can be offered as alternative to surgery in elderly or infirmed patients. But when the size of tumor is larger than 5 cm, there were few long-term survivors treated with radiotherapy alone. The use of hypefractionated radiotherapy, endobronchial boost, radisensitizer and conformal or IMRT should be consider to improve the local control rate and disease-specific survival rate.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.26 no.9
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• pp.686-695
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• 1993

A total of eighty one patients with resected stage II and IIIA non-small cell lung cancer treated with postoperative adjuvant radiation therapy between Jan. 1971 and Dec. 1990 were retrospectively analysed to evaluate whether postoperative radiation therapy improves survival. Patterns of failure and prognostic factors were also analysed. The 5 year overall and disease free survival rate were 40.5%, 43.4% and median survival 30 months. The 5 year actuarial survival rates by stage II and IIIA were 53.9% and 36.2%. Loco-regional failure rate was 14.7% and distant metastasis rate was 33.3% and both 4%. Statistically significant prognostic factor affecting survival was presence of mediastinal lymph node metastasis[N2]. This retrospective study suggests that postoperative radiation therapy in resected stage II and IIIA non-small cell lung cancer can reduce loco-regional recurrence and may improve survival rate as compared with other studies which were treated by surgery alone.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.22
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• pp.9673-9678
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• 2014

Background: Breast cancer is a fatal disease and the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women with an increasing pattern worldwide. The burden is mostly attributed to metastatic cancers that occur in one-third of patients and the treatments are palliative. It is of great interest to determine factors affecting time from cancer diagnosis to secondary metastasis. Materials and Methods: Cure rate models assume a Poisson distribution for the number of unobservable metastatic-component cells that are completely deleted from the non-metastasis patient body but some may remain and result in metastasis. Time to metastasis is defined as a function of the number of these cells and the time for each cell to develop a detectable sign of metastasis. Covariates are introduced to the model via the rate of metastatic-component cells. We used non-mixture cure rate models with Weibull and log-logistic distributions in a Bayesian setting to assess the relationship between metastasis free survival and covariates. Results: The median of metastasis free survival was 76.9 months. Various models showed that from covariates in the study, lymph node involvement ratio and being progesterone receptor positive were significant, with an adverse and a beneficial effect on metastasis free survival, respectively. The estimated fraction of patients cured from metastasis was almost 48%. The Weibull model had a slightly better performance than log-logistic. Conclusions: Cure rate models are popular in survival studies and outperform other models under certain conditions. We explored the prognostic factors of metastatic breast cancer from a different viewpoint. In this study, metastasis sites were analyzed all together. Conducting similar studies in a larger sample of cancer patients as well as evaluating the prognostic value of covariates in metastasis to each site separately are recommended.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.479-487
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• 1988

Valve replacements in 82 children, aging up to 15 years[mean 11.67 years] were done at Seoul National University Hospital during 13 years period from 1974 to 1986. The patients were composed of 5] males and 31 females and 50 patients had acquired heart disease and 32 patients congenital heart disease. 75 patients received single valve replacements, 6 patients double valve replacements, 1 patient triple valve replacement, and among all of them, 11 patients redo-replacements. The bioprosthetic valves have been applied to 58 patients and prosthetic valve to 24 patients and the latter was the main artificial valve since 1984. Among the 69 patients who had definite post-operative records, the overall mortality was 27.5%[20.3% was early mortality and 7.2% late mortality] and the overall mortality was lowered to 4.3% since 1984. There were early post-operative complication rate of 26.1% and late complication rate 34.8%, and among the latter, the valve failure rate was 11.4% patient-year, and the thrombo-embolism rate 1.76%/patient-year. 55 patients among the survivals after post-operative 1 month, were received follow-up with various anticoagulating medication for total 2046 patient-months[mini-mum 1 month to maximum 90 month, mean 37.2*25.44 months] and actuarial survival rate was 82*8% at 5 years and valve failure free and thrombo-embolic free survival rate were 61*8% and 90*3% respectively. And among them, valve failure free survival `rate of tissue valve were 91*6% at post-operative 2 years, 78*3% at 3 years, 59*9% at 4 years, 54*10% at 5 years, 53*15% at 6 years, so markedly decreased at 3-5 years post-operatively. These results suggest that cardiac valve replacement in children have been effective therapeutic method though various problems are still remained, and the choice of valve should be prosthetic valve mainly due to its durability at the present.

• The Journal of the Korean bone and joint tumor society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.59-65
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• 2012

Purpose: Multidisciplinary approaches of surgical resection and chemotherapy have been widely used for the treatment of non-metastatic osteosarcomas. We aimed to assess the effect of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for metastasis and disease-specific survival. Materials and Methods: Authors retrospectively reviewed 225 young (<30 years old) and non-metastatic osteosarcoma patients who underwent surgical resection and postoperative chemotherapy between February 1984 and July 2010. Mean age was 14.4 years old (ranged: 4-29 years old) and average follow-up period was 9.1 years (2-28 years). The patients were divided into two groups according to the application of preoperative chemotherapy. Both groups were compared with clinical characteristics, metastasis-free survival and disease-specific survival. Results: All of 225 patients, 32 patients were treated with postoperative chemotherapy and 193 patients were performed preoperative and postoperative chemotherapy. Postoperative chemotherapy group showed significantly high rate of amputation (p<0.001). Metastasis was occurred in 101 patients. Postoperative chemotherapy group indicated significant higher rate of metastasis (69% vs 41%, p=0.004) and early development of metastasis (mean: 11.5 vs 20.3 months, p=0.045) than pre-and postoperative chemotherapy group. Fifty-seven patients were died of osteosarcoma. Postoperative chemotherapy group revealed significant lower rate of 5-year disease-specific survival than pre-and postoperative chemotherapy group (51% vs 84%, p=0.001). Adult (>15 years) and large sized tumor (>8 cm) were meaningful risk factors of metastasis and disease-specific survival. Although, local recurrences were occurred in 13 patients, there was no significant difference. Conclusion: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy offers better disease-specific survival and metastasis-free survival.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.66-71
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• 2013

Purpose: We evaluated the effectiveness and safety of ipsilateral radiotherapy for the patient with well lateralized tonsil cancer: not cross midline and <1 cm of tumor invasion into the soft palate or base of tongue. Materials and Methods: From 2003 to 2011, twenty patients with well lateralized tonsil cancer underwent ipsilateral radiotherapy. Nineteen patients had T1-T2 tumors, and one patient had T3 tumor; twelve patients had N0-N2a disease and eight patients had N2b disease. Primary surgery followed by radiotherapy was performed in fourteen patients: four of these patients received chemotherapy. Four patients underwent induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT). The remaining two patients received induction chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy and definitive CCRT, respectively. No patient underwent radiotherapy alone. We analyzed the pattern of failure and complications. Results: The median follow-up time was 64 months (range, 11 to 106 months) for surviving patients. One patient had local failure at tumor bed. There was no regional failure in contralateral neck, even in N2b disease. At five-year, local progression-free survival, distant metastasis-free survival, and progression-free survival rates were 95%, 100%, and 95%, respectively. One patient with treatment failure died, and the five-year overall survival rate was 95%. Radiation Therapy Oncology Group grade 2 xerostomia was found in one patient at least 6 months after the completion of radiotherapy. Conclusion: Ipsilateral radiotherapy is a reasonable treatment option for well lateralized tonsil cancer. Low rate of chronic xerostomia can be expected by sparing contralateral major salivary glands.