Survival of 1737 lobectomy-tolerable patients who underwent limited resection for cStage IA non-small-cell lung cancer

A precise preoperative diagnosis of 'very early' lung carcinoma may identify patients who can undergo curative surgery with limited resections. Data from a multi-institutional project were collected on 1737 patients who had undergone limited resections (segmentectomy or wedge resection) for T1N0M0 non-small-cell carcinomas. As it was expected, this study was predominantly including ground glass nodules. Computed tomography was used to obtain the ratio of consolidation to the maximal tumour diameter to determine invasive potential of the tumours. Overall and disease-free survivals and recurrence-free proportions were analysed. Median age was 64 years. Mean maximal diameter of the tumours was 1.4±0.5 cm. Overall and recurrence-free survivals after limited lung resection were 94.0 and 91.1% at 5 years, respectively. Recurrence-free proportions were 93.7% at 5 years. Unfavourable prognostic factors in overall survival were lymph node metastasis, interstitial pneumonia, male gender, older age, comorbidities (cardiac disease, diabetes etc.) and consolidation/tumour ratio (C/T)≤0.25. C/T≤0.25 predicted good outcomes especially in cT1aN0M0 disease. In a subclass analysis of cT1N0M0 squamous cell carcinomas, wedge resection was the only unfavourable prognostic factor in both overall and disease-free survivals. If the patient was 75 years old or younger and was judged fit for lobectomy, limited resection for cStage I non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) showed excellent outcomes and was not inferior to the reported results of lobectomy for small-sized NSCLC. The carcinomas with C/T≤0.25 rarely recur and are especially good candidates for limited resection.