Surgery for stage IIB-IIIB small cell lung cancer

Abstract

Purpose: The NCCN guidelines do not recommend surgery for T3-4N0M0/T1-4N1-2M0 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) due to a lack of evidence.

Methods: Data of patients with T3-4N0M0/T1-4N1-2M0 SCLC were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to determine the impact of surgery on this population. The Kaplan-Meier method, univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression, and propensity score matching (PSM) were used to compare the overall survival (OS) between the surgery and non-surgery groups. In addition, we explored whether sublobectomy, lobectomy, and pneumonectomy could provide survival benefits.

Results: In total, 8572 patients with SCLC treated without surgery and 342 patients treated with surgery were included in this study. The PSM-adjusted hazard ratio (HR, 95% CI) for surgery vs. no surgery, sublobectomy vs. no surgery, lobectomy vs. no surgery, pneumonectomy vs. no surgery, and lobectomy plus adjuvant chemoradiotherapy vs. chemoradiotherapy were 0.71 (0.61-0.82) (P < 0.001), 0.91 (0.70-1.19) (P = 0.488), 0.60 (0.50-0.73) (P < 0.001), 0.57 (0.28-1.16) (P = 0.124), and 0.73 (0.56-0.96) (P = 0.023), respectively. The subgroup analysis demonstrated consistent results.

Conclusions: Lobectomy improved OS in patients with T3-4N0M0/T1-4N1-2M0 SCLC, while pneumonectomy also demonstrated a tendency to improve OS without statistical significance; however, sublobectomy showed no survival benefit.

Keywords: Lobectomy; Pneumonectomy; SEER; Small cell lung cancer; Sublobectomy.