[The contribution of the clinical examination to the diagnosis of bronchopulmonary cancer].

An analysis is made of the contribution of clinical examination to the diagnosis of primary bronchopulmonary cancer in a lot of 355 patients. As it is known bronchopulmonary cancer does not have a characteristic and patognomonic clinical symptomatology. In two thirds of the patients (236/66.4%) the disease' onset was marked by respiratory symptoms. In half of these patients (120/33.8% of the total number of cases) the respiratory syndromes for which the patient had requested medical help could have suggested the diagnosis, and were marked by a pseudo-pneumonia, or pneumopathy with long evolution, intensified coughing in a patient who had been coughing for a long time, or an onset marked by hemopthysis. In the other half of the patients in this group the onset symptoms had nothing characteristic. The onset marked by metastases was noted 69 of the patients (19.4%), and para-neoplastic syndromes were noted in 10 (2.8%). These certainly suggested the presence of pulmonary cancer. It appears that in over half of the patients 9195, or 54.1%) the clinical examination could suggest the existence of bronchopulmonary cancer, and this percentage increases if patients are included in those whose respiratory symptoms are not characteristic but in those which physical examination will evidence suggestive changes. Only in a very small number of patients (12, or 3.3%) the clinical examination did not provide any diagnostic element. These were the asymptomatic cases, accidentally identified in the course of a radiological examination. It should be stressed that the clinical suspicion of pulmonary cancer should always be confirmed by paraclinical investigations.