A case of stage IIIB pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma that responded well to chemoradiotherapy and surgery]

A 44-year-old man was admitted because he had a mass in the right upper lung field showing high uptake of FDG-PET. Although he had already received video-assisted thoracic surgery to remove the mass in another hospital, the procedure had been unsuccessful because of severe adhesion to the superior vena cava. The pathological diagnosis of a specimen obtained in surgery was pleomorphic carcinoma, clinical stage IIIb (c-T4N2M0). We performed concurrent chemoradiotherapy consisting of systemic chemotherapy twice with both cisplatin and vinorelbine, and radiation therapy (60Gy). The tumor size reduced by 46% immediately after chemoradiotherapy. Because there was still no evidence of distant metastasis, we performed a right upper lobectomy and resection of the superior vena cava to remove the tumor completely. We did not detect any microscopic cancer cells in the surgical specimens and the pathological diagnosis was complete response (CR). It is thought that chemotherapy and radiotherapy are ineffective for pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma. However, in this case, concurrent chemoradiotherapy with surgical therapy was highly effective and no recurrence has been observed 13 months after surgery.