Long-term outcomes and prognostic factors of patients with surgically treated pulmonary carcinoid: our institutional experience with 104 patients

Objective: Pulmonary carcinoid tumors are rare low-grade malignant neoplasms and constitute 2-5% of all lung tumors. In this study, we aimed to determine the clinical presentations, types of surgery, long-term treatment outcomes and survival rates of patients diagnosed with carcinoid tumor treated surgically in our clinic.

Methods: Patients operated in our clinic between 1992 and 2008 with confirmed or suspected diagnoses of carcinoid tumors were included in our study. Patients' hospital records were retrospectively analyzed.

Results: A total of 104 patients (age 19-71 years, mean 44±13 years, 2 SD) with pathologically confirmed carcinoid tumor were analyzed. A total of 84 patients (81%) were diagnosed as typical and the remaining 20 (19%) being atypical carcinoid tumor. As many as 24 patients (23%) were asymptomatic. The most frequent symptom was recurrent respiratory infection (35%). The most used surgical procedures were lobectomy (47%) and bilobectomy (16%). Mean postoperative follow-up period was 72 months (6-190 months). No surgery related mortality was noticed. As many as 15 (14%) patients died during the follow-up period. Overall 5- and 10-year survival rates were 89% and 72%, respectively. For typical carcinoid tumors, the 5- and 10-year survival rates were 92% and 83%, and for atypical carcinoids 73% and 46%, respectively (p<0.001).

Conclusions: In our study, we noticed histological subtype, stage of the disease and the type of surgery performed to be prognostic factors of carcinoid tumors. Atypical carcinoid tumors tend to be more metastatic and had worse prognosis when compared with typical carcinoid tumors. We conclude that surgery is the best treatment of choice for carcinoid tumors, especially parenchyma-sparing procedures, because of their good mid- and long-term survival rates.