Postradiation sarcoma involving the spine.

Postradiation sarcomas arising many years after treatment of cancer are long term sequelae of therapy. We describe the clinical features, radiographic findings, and results of treatment in 13 patients with such sarcomas encountered over a 6-year period. Of these patients, 9 had bone sarcomas and the remaining 4 had paraspinal tumors arising from adjacent soft tissue and nerve.

Postradiation osteogenic sarcoma of bone and soft tissues. A clinicopathologic study of 66 patients.

Sixty-six patients with well-documented osteogenic sarcomas arising in bones and soft tissues after exposure to x-rays, which represent approximately 5.5 percent of all osteogenic sarcomas registered since 1921 at this institution, were studied. These secondary sarcomas occurred in equal proportion in both sexes, with the sixth decade of life being the most common age.

Benign solitary lung lesions in patients with cancer.

The appearance of a lung opacity on a chest film of a patient with known cancer may present a diagnostic dilemma. From 1940 through 1975, over 800 patients with this problem underwent thoracotomy for confirmation of diagnosis. In some 500 of these patients, the lesion proved to be primary cancer of the lung; in 196 they were solitary metastases and in 11 patients the lesions were benign.

Separate primary carcinomas of the esophagus and head and neck region in the same patient.

From 1949 to 1972 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 60 patients with primary cancers of both the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx (OPL) and esophagus were studied. In 15, the cancers occurred synchronously, and in 68% they occurred within 2 years of each other, the longest interval being 27 years. The tongue and extrinsic larynx were the most common sites of origin together with the middle third of the esophagus.

Significance of a solitary lung shadow in patients with breast cancer.

From 1949 through 1972 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute, 72 breast cancer patients developed a synchronous or metachronous solitary lung shadow. Forty-three had separate primary lung cancers; 23 had breast carcinoma metastases and six had benign lung lesions. Of these, 47% were asymptomatic and the lesions were discovered by routine chest roentgenograms.