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Vol.41 No.7 contents

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- Original Article -

Pathogenesis of Pulmonary Infarction Following Lung Tumor With Regard to the Presence of Venous Infarction

Yoshinori Kawabata, Satoshi Kanauchi¹, Toshiko Hoshi¹, Tomohiko Ikeya², Katumi Murai², Katsuhiko Aoyama², Eishin Hoshi² and Minoru Kanazawa³
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Saitama Cardiovascular Respiratory Center, ¹Department of Radiology, ²Department of Thoracic Surgery, ³Department of Respiratory Medicine

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Objective: To reevaluate the pathogenesis of pulmonary infarction following lung tumors, after an experience with venous infarction. To date, pulmonary infarction is considered arterial, especially pulmonary thrombo-embolism. Subjects and Methods: Twenty-six patients with pulmonary infarctions following lung tumors among 594 lobectomies and one surgical lung biopsy. Patients with infarction consisted of 21 men and 6 women and the mean age was 59. Pulmonary infarctions were divided into arterial, mixed, and venous according to the degree of arterial and venous obstruction or stenosis and location of the infarction; centrilobular or centri-septal. Infarctions were evaluated macroscopically and microscopically and scored semi-quantitatively. Results: There were 7 arterial, 16 mixed, and 4 venous infarctions. Although marked overlaps existed among all three groups, the degree of arterial lesions (2.7± 0.5: 1.3± 0.5) and venous lesions (0.7± 0.5: 2.8± 0.5) around the infarction significantly differed (<5%) between the arterial and venous infarction groups. There was no thrombus in or around fresh infarction. The location of infarction (centrilobular: centriseptal) was also significantly different (<1%) between the two groups (arterial 5: 0, venous 0: 13). Conclusion: Recognition of venous infarction is important in understanding the pathogenesis of pulmonary infarction.
key words: Lung cancer, Pulmonary infarction, Venous infarction, Obstruction of vessel

Received: June 20, 2001
Accepted: October 26, 2001

JJLC 41 (7): 755-762, 2001