Survival in Limited Disease Small Cell Lung Cancer According to N3 Lymph Node Involvement

There are several definitions of limited disease (LD) in small cell lung cancer (SCLC), differing with respect to N3 disease accepted. We analyzed patients from a randomized trial comparing two schedules of thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) in LD SCLC to investigate whether there were survival differences between N3 subcategories (n=144). Patients with a baseline CT scan available were analysed. Patients received four courses of cisplatin/etoposide and TRT of 45 Gy/30 fractions (twice daily) or 42 Gy/15 fractions (once daily). Median overall survival (OS) was 23.3 months in the whole cohort. N3-patients (n=37) had shorter survival than those with N0-2 (16.7 vs. 33.0 months; p