Abstract: Objective : to compare the patient characteristics and surgical intervention. The pattern of recurrent carcinoma and prognosis in patients with stage I Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and adenocarcioma of the lung. Methods : Seventy-six patients with stage I bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and adenocarcinoma resected between 1982 and 1998 were divided into 2 groups, and were taken follow-up for a long time. We compare the clinical characteristics, sites of carcinoma, surgical methods, sites of recurrent disease and survival time after operation. The median follow-up for patients with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and adenocarcinoma was 7.2 years and 6.9 years respectively. Results : Twenty-two patients had bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and 54 patients had adenocarcinoma. Thirteen of the twenty-two patients (59%) with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and twenty-five of the fifty-four (46%) patients with adenocarcinoma were women. Eight of the twen-ty-two patients (36%) with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma had never smoked as compared with 12 cases of 54 (20%) in the adenocarcinoma group. Thirteen of the fifteen (87%) patients with recur-rent bronchioloalveolar carcinoma were within the lung parenchyma. In contrast, extrathoracic metastases were common in the patients(twenty-two of the forty-six patients, 54%) with adenocar-cinoma, of these patients with recurrent adenocarcinoma20% has metastases to bone, 12%to brain, 15%to liver, Patients with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma lived longer (5 year survival 91%) than patients with adenocarcinoma (5 years survival 63%) after resection of their stage 1 disease(P=0.02). Conclusion : Stage I bronchioloalveolar carcinoma is more likely to occure in worman. No obvious relation is found with smoking. The greater tendency for intrapulmonary metastases is the most commonly and lobectomy is performed commonly in our patients with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma. The prognosis with this type is better than that adenocarcinoma type.