Abstract
BACKGROUND: Prognosis of stage IIIA N2 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains poor despite the changes in therapeutic strategies. OBJECTIVES: To assess long term results of neo adjuvant therapy followed by surgery for patients with stage IIIA N2 NSCLC and to analyze factors influencing survival. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The methods adopted include: Retrospective review of medical records of 91 patients with stage IIIA N2 NSCLC, who received neo adjuvant therapy followed by surgery; collection of information on demographic information, staging procedure, preoperative therapy, clinical response, type of resection, pathologic response of tumor, status of lymph nodes and adjuvant chemotherapy; survival analysis by Kaplan-Meier and calculation of prognostic factors using log-rank and Cox regression model. RESULTS: All patients received a platinum-based chemotherapy and 23 (29.1%) had an associated radiotherapy. Eighty four patients underwent thoracotomy. Median survival was 26 months (95%CI, 22.6-30.8 months) with three and five year survival rates of 31.6 and 20.9%, respectively. Prognostic factors for survival on univariate analysis was clinical response (P = 0.032), complete resection (P = 0.002), pathologic tumor response ( P < 0.001), and lymph nodal down staging (P = 0.001). Multivariate analyses identified complete resection, pathologic tumor response and lymph nodal down staging as independent prognostic factors. CONCLUSION: Survival of patients with stage IIIA N2 NSCLC who received neo adjuvant therapy is significantly influenced by clinical response, complete resection, pathologic tumor response, and lymph nodal down staging. These results can be helpful in guiding standard clinical practice and evaluating the outcome of neo adjuvant therapy followed by surgery in patients with stage IIIA N2 NSCLC.