The effect of nodal downstage on long-term outcome for patients of non-small-cell lung cancer withⅢA-N2 stage / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Objective:To observe the locoregional recurrence and survival of stageⅢA-N2 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after in-duction chemotherapy and surgery, to analyze the prognosis influenced by nodal downstaging, and to explore the necessity for postop-erative radiotherapy. Methods:A total of 116 cases of stageⅢA-N2 NSCLC were treated with induction chemotherapy and surgery be-tween January 2009 and June 2014. These cases underwent R0 resection. Kaplan-Meier method was employed to calculate the local recurrence-free survival (LRFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and overall survival (OS) of the patients. Log-rank test was con-ducted to compare the differences between groups. Cox models were used to perform multivariate analysis. Results:The median fol-low-up of the patients was 24.42 months. The numbers of patients with pN0, pN1, and pN2 were 40 (34.5%), 16 (13.8%), and 60 (51.7%), respectively. The 3-year local recurrence rates of patients with pN0, pN1, and pN2 were 27.5%, 56.2%, and 51.7%, respectively. In the group treated with adjuvant chemotherapy, the 3-year local-recurrence rates of patients with pN0, pN1, and pN2 were 26.9%, 58.3%, and 46.2%, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that the significant predictor of LRFS was pN0 during the surgery. The LRFS of patients with pN0 was greater than that of the patients with pN1 (P=0.048). The LRFS of patients with pN1 was not significantly associated with that of patients with pN2 (P=0.314). The 5-year OS rate of the groups was 46.6%. The multivariate analysis also demon-strated that pT1, pN0-1, and induction chemotherapy effects were associated with OS. The patients with pN2 yielded a poorer OS than those with pN0 and pN1 (P<0.05). The patients with pN0 did not significantly differ from those with pN1 in terms of OS (P=0.412). Conclu-sionAlthough the occurrence of pathologic downstaging is a well-known positive prognostic indicator after stageⅢ-N2 NSCLC is sub-jected to chemotherapy, the local-recurrence rate of nodal-downstaged patients remains high, even when they receive adjuvant che-motherapy. Therefore, new postoperative strategies after induction chemotherapy and surgery should be developed.