General Characteristics of the Operative Series

Abstract

From the beginning of 1972 to the end of September, 1978 (publication of the Third Edition of the TNM Classification of the WHO, introducing stage IV disease [340]), 206 consecutive patients with preoperatively or postoperatively confirmed primary carcinoma of the lung were treated surgically at the Clinic for Cardiothoracic Surgery of the University of Basel, Switzerland. While only 17 operations were performed in 1972 (the year in which the clinic expanded its services to include both cardiac and noncardiac thoracic surgery), the rate in subsequent years rose to 30 or more carcinoma operations performed annually.