Primary Chondrosarcoma of the Left Inferior Lobar Bronchus

Abstract

A primary chondrosarcoma arising in the left inferior lobar bronchus is described in a 67-year-old man. The symptoms upon admittance were dyspnea, cough with purulent sputum and weight loss. The tumor was removed by pneumonectomy. Eight months later the patient died of massive mediastinal lymph node involvement. While tracheobronchially located primary pulmonary chondrosarcoma tends to remain localized, the peripheral variety tends toward mediastinal lymph node involvement and thoracic metastasis. The treatment of choice is resection in a radical manner, whenever possible.

Chondrosarcoma of the lobar bronchus with prolonged postoperative survival

“…The bone scan is normal in most cases. Bronchoscopy and biopsy may be of value [2,3,[7][8][9], but was not contributive in our case.…”

“…Some 20 cases have been described [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In the literature, a distinction is made between centrally-located tracheobronchial tumours and peripherally-located tumours [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. The tracheobronchial tumours are sharply demarcated and slow-growing.…”

“…In both groups, symptoms often arise insidiously, as a result of compression of lung or bronchus from the expanding tumour. Eventually, there may be pleural or lymph node involvement [3,4,7].…”

“…The treatment of choice is surgical resection [2,6,7,9], but the size of the resection margin is open to question, since frozen section examination is unreliable for evaluation of radicality at operation. In our case, the double nuclei at the resection surface of the bronchial cartilage were found only at postoperative tissue examination.…”

“…In our case, the double nuclei at the resection surface of the bronchial cartilage were found only at postoperative tissue examination. Neither radiotherapy nor chemotherapy have proved to be of value [7].…”