The prognosis after radiotherapy for carcinoma of the lung according to the extent of mediastinal lymphnode involvement

Radiotherapeutic prognosis was analized on mediastinal lymphnode metastasis from lung cancer. From 1975 to 1982, 93 patients in N2M0 lung cancer of stage III treated by radiotherapy were distributed to 3 groups by location of mediastinal involvement, resulting 49 cases in ipsilateral mediastinal involvement (IL), 33 in medial mediastinal involvement (MM) and 11 in contralateral mediastinal involvement (CL). The relation between primary lesion and site of mediastinal involvement was not obvious. In T factor, T3 cases were more distributed in MM and CL than T2. In prognosis, there were no difference between IL and MM. But CL showed worse prognosis than IL and MM (p < 0.05). In comparison with stage IV treated at the same duration (133 cases), there were no difference of the prognosis between CL and stage IV. Contralateral mediastinal lymphnode metastasis was poor prognosis in radiotherapy, samely with stage IV. (author)