Surgical Treatment and Outcome of Patients with De Novo Lung Cancer After Liver Transplantation

Background De novo malignancy, including primary lung cancer, is one of the limitations to long-term survival after liver transplantation. The purpose of this study was to describe patients who developed de novo lung cancer after living-donor liver transplantation (LDLT) and investigate their clinicopathological features as well as the feasibility of surgical resection. Patients and methods We investigated 554 patients who underwent LDLT. Results De novo lung cancer after LDLT was observed in five (0.9%) out of 554 studied patients: four men and one woman, aged 61-78 years (mean=67 years). All four men had a smoking history. Clinical stages of de novo lung cancer were stage IA in three patients, and stage IB and IV in one patient each. Three out of five patients underwent pulmonary lobectomy and pathological stage was IA in two patients and IIA in one. All patients who underwent surgery stopped immunosuppressive therapy 1 day preoperatively and restarted on postoperative day 1. There were no serious postoperative complications. All three patients are still alive without any recurrence, with survival ranging from 8 to 29 months, with an average of 16.3 months after diagnosis of lung cancer. Conclusion Although the study population was small, these results suggest that pulmonary lobectomy of de novo lung cancer after LDLT, even under immunosuppressive conditions, is a feasible procedure and may yield a survival benefit.