Optimal managements of stage IIIA (N2) non-small cell lung cancer patients: a population-based survival analysis

摘要

Background: This study aimed to investigate the optimal management of stage IIIA (cN2) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and determine potential predictive factors. Methods: We extracted patients diagnosed as NSCLC stage IIIA (cN2) between 2004 and 2011 from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Overall survival (OS) and lung cancer-speci c survival (LCSS) were compared among patients given different clinical managements by Kaplan-Meier method. Other variables such as age, sex and tumor size were analyzed to explore the factors associated with outcomes. Results: A total of 98,700 IIIA-cN2 NSCLC patients were identified from SEER database. Survival of patients treated with surgery was better than that of patients treated by radiotherapy alone (P 65 (P=0.902), adenocarcinoma (P=0.279), tumor size ≤3 cm (P=0.170), well differentiated (P=0.360) patients, preoperative radiotherapy improved survival insigni cantly compared with surgery alone. Conclusions: Preoperative radiation with surgery had the most encouraging survival outcomes in stage IIIA-cN2 NSCLC patients compared with radiation or surgery alone. No signi cant outcome improvement was shown between postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) and surgery alone.