Surgery Alone and Surgery Plus Postoperative Radiation Therapy for Patients with pT3N0 Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Invading the Chest Wall

Park, Young Je; Ahn, Yong Chan; Lim, Do Hoon; Kim, Kwhanmien; Kim, Jhingook; Shim, Young Mog

Abstract

BACKGROUND: No general consensus has been available regarding the necessity of postoperative radiation therapy (PORT) and its optimal techniques in the patients with chest wall invasion (pT3cw) and node negative (N0) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We did retrospective analyses on the pT3cwN0 NSCLC patients who received PORT because of presumed inadequate resection margin on surgical findings. And we compared them with the pT3cwN0 NSCLC patients who did not received PORT during the same period. MATERIAL AND METHOD: From Aug. of 1994 till June of 2002, 22 pT3cwN0 NSCLC patients received PORT-PORT (+) group- and 16 pT3cwN0 NSCLC patients had no PORT-PORT (-) group. The radiation target volume for PORT (+) group was confined to the tumor bed plus the immediate adjacent tissue only, and no regional lymphatics were included. The prognostic factors for all patients were analyzed and survival rates, failure patterns were compared with two groups. RESULT: Age, tumor size, depth of chest wall invasion, postoperative mobidities were greater in PORT (-) group than PORT (+) group. In PORT (-) group, four patients who were consulted for PORT did not receive the PORT because of self refusal (3 patients) and delay in the wound repair (1 patient). For all patients, overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), loco-regional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), and distant metastases-free survival (DMFS) rates at 5 years were 35.3%, 30.3%, 80.9%, 36.3%. In univariate and multivariate analysis, only PORT significantly affect the survival. The 5 year OS rates were 43.3% in the PORT (+) group and 25.0% in PORT (-) group (p=0.03). DFS, LRFS, DMFS rates were 36.9%, 84.9%, 43.1% in PORT (+) group and 18.8%, 79.4%, 21.9% in PORT(-) group respectively. Three patients in PORT (-) group died of intercurrent disease without the evidence of recurrence. Few suffered from acute and late radiation side effects, all of which were RTOG grade 2 or lower.
CONCLUSION
The strategy of adding PORT to surgery to improve the probability not only of local control but also of survival could be justified, considering that local control was the most important component in the successful treatment of pT3cw NSCLC patients, especially when the resection margin was not adequate. Authors were successful in the marked reduction of the incidence as well as the severity of the acute and late side effects of PORT, without taking too high risk of the regional failures by eliminating the regional lymphatics from the radiation target volume.