PRIMARY CARCINOMA OF THE LUNGS

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Abstract
Primary carcinoma of the lungs has become a clinical and pathologic entity of importance only in the last two decades. The pathologist of the nineteenth century was apparently under the influence of Virchow's statement to the effect that those organs which are frequently the seat of a metastatic involvement by malignant tumors are only in rare instances the seat of a primary new growth. The lungs were usually quoted as an example. Since from the circulatory point of view these organs are the convergent point of the body, malignant cells which happened to invade the blood or lymph streams invariably reach the lungs, where they form secondary nodules or masses, the latter not infrequently overshadowing that of the primary growth. Moreover, the failure of the pathologist to demonstrate grossly a secondary involvement of the lung by tumor is at present not regarded as being conclusive proof of the actual absence

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