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Surgery improves survival rates for patients with lung cancer

Resection resulted in greater overall survival and disease-specific survival rates compared with no surgery for patients with lung cancer, according to study results.

Dan J. Raz, MD, of the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California, and colleagues analyzed data from 4,111 patients to determine differences in survival for patients who had and did not have surgery for biopsy specimen-proven lymph node-negative carcinoid tumors. The data was from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program for the period between 1988 and 2010.

Dan J. Raz

The overall survival after 5 years was 93% for patients undergoing lobectomy, 92% for patients undergoing sublobar resection and 69% for patients forgoing surgery (P < .0001, for all). Disease-specific survival rates at 5 years were 97%, 98% and 88%, respectively (P < .0001, for all).

After controlling for age, sex, race and ethnicity, as well as tumor stage, patients who declined surgery had a greater mortality risk than patients who underwent lobectomy (HR = 2.23; 95% CI, 1.67-2.96).

An increase in patient age also was associated with disease-specific mortality. Patients aged 80 years and older were more likely to die when compared with patients aged 18 to 49 years (HR = 14.1; 95% CI, 6.53-29.1).

The researchers said these results could provide information for counseling patients on the possible outcomes of having or not having surgery.

“We emphasize that patients who are fit for surgery should still undergo resection,” the researchers wrote. “Although there was selection bias in the assignment of treatment in this study, the data demonstrate a survival benefit to resection on multivariate analysis.”

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.