Impact of preoperative comorbidities on postoperative complication rate and outcome in surgically resected non-small cell lung cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to analyze whether comorbidities impact postoperative complication rate or survival after anatomical lung resection for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). METHODS: A retrospective analysis of 1219 patients who underwent NSCLC resection between 2000 and 2015 was performed. Analyzed comorbidities included chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), hypertension, coronary artery disease (CAD), peripheral artery disease, myocardial infarction history, diabetes mellitus, renal insufficiency and other malignancies. RESULTS: Most patients (78.9%) had comorbidities, most commonly hypertension (34.1%) followed by COPD (26.4%) and other malignancies (19%). The overall complication rate was 38.6% (26.4% pulmonary; 14.8% cardiac; and 3.0% gastrointestinal). Hypertension (odds ratio (OR) = 1.492, p = 0.031) was associated with more cardiac complications. Heavy smoking (OR = 1.008, p = 0.003) and low body mass index (BMI) (OR = 0.932, p < 0.001) affected the pulmonary complication rate significantly. None of the included comorbidities affected the overall complication rate or the survival negatively. However, the patient characteristics of advanced age (p < 0.001), low BMI (p = 0.008), and low FEV1 (p = 0.008) affected the overall complication rate as well as survival (each p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Advanced age, low BMI, and low FEV1 were predictive of greater complication risk and shorter long-term survival in patients who underwent NSCLC resection. Cardiac complications were associated with hypertension and CAD, whereas pulmonary complications were associated with a high pack year count.

Complex sleeve lobectomy has the same surgical outcome when compared with conventional lobectomy in patients with lung cancer.

OBJECTIVES: No significant data are available to assess whether complex sleeve lobectomy (complex-SL) can be considered comparable to conventional lobectomy (CL) in terms of surgical outcome. The purpose of this study was to compare surgical and oncological outcomes of complex-SL with CL in patients with lung cancer. METHODS: Between 2000 and 2015, a total of 568 patients who underwent open CL (defined as resection of only 1 lobe) and 187 patients who underwent SL were analysed. The SL group was divided into 2 subgroups: standard-SL (bronchial SL, n = 106) and complex-SL (n = 81) (defined as bronchial sleeve resection together with another surgical intervention: bronchovascular SL, n = 40; vascular SL, n = 26; atypical bronchoplasty with resection of more than 1 lobe, n = 12; bronchial SL + chest wall resection, n = 3). RESULTS: The complex-SL group had more patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (25.9% vs 12.5%, P = 0.001), neoadjuvant treatment (39.5% vs 12.0%, P < 0.001), advanced-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (53.2% vs 33.1%, P = 0.001) and low preoperative forced expiratory volume in 1 s (77.2% vs 84.3%, P = 0.004) than the CL group. The overall surgical mortality (in-hospital or 30-day) was 2.6% (n = 20); it was 2.8% for CL and 2.8% for complex-SL. Postoperative complications occurred in 34.9% of the CL group and 39.5% of the complex-SL group (P = 0.413). The pulmonary complication rate was similar between the groups (24.1% for CL, 27.2% for complex-SL, P = 0.552). The 5-year survival in the CL group was 57.1%, and in the complex-SL group it was 56.2% (P = 0.888). Multivariate analysis showed that TNM stage (P < 0.001) and N status (P < 0.001) were significant and independent negative prognostic factors for survival. CONCLUSIONS: Complex-SL had a comparable outcome to CL, although the complex-SL group had more patients with advanced-stage NSCLC, low preoperative forced expiratory volume in 1 s and COPD.