Analysis was made of 112 patients who underwent resection of metastatic pulmonary noldules for nonosteogenic sarcoma at the Mayo Clinic from 1950--76. The 5-year post-thoracotomy survival was 29% with a median survival of 18 months. There has been no substantial change between 1950 and 1976 in post-thoracotomy survival among all patients who received this operation here. Prognosis was especially grim (p less than 0.01) for patients with pre-thoracotomy disease-free intervals of less than 12 months, and for those experiencing extrathoracic recurrences vs. further pulmonary recurrent tumor (p = .01) following thoracotomy. The following discriminants were not significantly associated with postthoracotomy survival: age, sex, histology, number of lesions fully excised, or site of lung lesions. We conclude that the therapeutic value of thoracotomy in the treatment of metastatic nonosteogenic sarcomas has not changed here during the past quarter of a century. Whether the recent more common use of thoracotomy in metastatic disease of this type is therapeutically worthwhile cannot be clearly determined from the data available.