Redevelopment of small-cell lung cancer nine years after the start of therapy. A case report and review of the literature

Most patients with small-cell lung cancer usually relapse within 1 to 2 years. Relapses after a 5-year disease-free interval occur extremely rarely. This report describes a patient with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer who had achieved a complete response to combination chemotherapy followed by chest irradiation but developed small-cell lung cancer 9.4 years after the beginning of therapy. Small-cell lung cancer recurred in the same side of the lung, in the mediastinal nodes, and in the liver. The pattern of development of small-cell lung cancer suggests that the patient had a relapse rather than a metachronous lung cancer. To our knowledge, this is the second-latest relapse of small-cell lung cancer in the literature.