The coin lesion story: update 1976. Twenty years' experience with thoracotomy for 179 suspected malignant coin lesions.

We reviewed 179 patients who had undergone thoracotomy and resection of a suspected malignant coin lesion of the lung over the past 20 years to see if a policy of early thoracotomy was therapeutically valid. The average diameter of all lesions was 1.6 cm; the average diameter of 27 malignant lesions (15 percent) was 1.8 cm. Follow-up of the 27 patients with malignant neoplasms was 100 percent. The present survival rate of the 19 patients with primary lung cancer is 89 percent (17/19). Of 12 cases of primary lung cancer followed for five years, ten (83 percent) survived. The five-year survival of the eight patients with metastatic lesions was 25 percent (2/8). There were no postoperative deaths and few serious postoperative complications (four patients or 2 percent). Very small primary lung cancers detected and treated early do have the same poor prognosis as larger primary cancers.

Liver dysfunction and polymyalgia rheumatica. A case report.

Hepatic dysfunction may be a manifestation of polymyalgia rheumatica. We present a second patient with the polymyalgia rheumatica syndrome and a significantly elevated alkaline phosphtase who, on liver biopsy, demonstrated granuloma formation and massive infiltration of the portal spaces with lymphocytes. The alkaline phosphatase elevation was favorably influenced by low dose steroid therapy.

Symptomatic benign lymphoid hyperplasia of the terminal ileum in an adult.

An immunocompetent adult male was found to have obstructive lymphoid hyperplasia of the terminal ileum. The lesion persisted without malignant change for at least one year. Following surgical resection he had symptomatic relief.