Thoracic surgery and the war against smoking: Richard H. Overholt, MD.

Richard H. Overholt was born at the beginning of the twentieth century when thoracic surgery hardly existed. During the first 20 years of his life progress in the field was slow.

Concomitant 5-fluorouracil infusion and high-dose radiation for stage III non-small cell lung cancer.

Thirty patients with Stage III non-small cell lung cancer were entered on a trial to evaluate the feasibility of combined radiation and concomitant 5-fluorouracil infusion. Patients had received prior debulking surgery (nine), induction chemotherapy (16), or no therapy (five). Radiation employed standard fractionation (180-200 rad/day) administered to a median cumulative dose of 5500 rad (range, 4500-6200 rad).

Primary lung cancer surgery in stage II and stage III.

We reviewed 100 operations performed on 95 consecutive patients with stage II (n = 7) and stage III (n = 88) primary lung cancer. The five-year survival of patients with N1 involvement was 58% and with N2 disease was 21%. Of 13 patients with Pancoast or chest wall involvement, 58% survived five years.