J Cancer 2021; 12(17):5076-5085. doi:10.7150/jca.52572 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Department of Thoracic Surgery, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200433, China.
2. Respiration Department II, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shihezi University Medical College, Shihezi, Xinjiang 832000, China.
#These authors contributed equally to this work.
Background: Whether location mattered remained controversial in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective study with the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Overall survival (OS) and lung cancer-specific survival (LCSS) with landmark analysis and restricted mean survival time (RMST) were compared between patients with a tumor in upper lobe and non-upper lobe. The multivariable Cox analysis was applied to evaluate multiple prognostic factors.
Results: Tumor in non-upper lobe had worse OS (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.354, p < 0.001) and LCSS (HR: 1.476, p = 0.005) than the upper lobe in stage IB adenocarcinoma in 32-month landmark and IA3 (OS, HR: 1.300, p < 0.001; LCSS, HR: 1.413, p = 0.004) adenocarcinoma in 48-month landmark, but not in stage IA1 and IA2 adenocarcinoma. The results remained positive in subgroups of < 4, ≥ 4 and ≥ 11 LN examined in stage IB tumor and ≥ 4 LN examined in stage IA3 tumor. For SCC, non-upper lobar tumor had similar OS and LCSS with upper lobar tumor in all stages. The multivariate Cox analysis confirmed that the non-upper lobe was an independent risk factor in stage IA3-IB adenocarcinoma, but not in SCC. Adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) could improve OS in stage IB adenocarcinoma (HR: 0.586, p < 0.001) and SCC (HR: 0.708, p = 0.030) located in non-upper lobe.
Conclusions: Non-upper lobar adenocarcinoma in stage IA3-IB was associated with worse prognosis. ACT may improve prognosis in stage IB tumor located in non-upper lobe.
Keywords: location, NSCLC, survival, early stage, chemotherapy