Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Elderly people are less likely than younger patients to undergo curative surgery for early-stage lung cancer because of the greater risk of surgery and postoperative complications. We investigated the relationship between treatment modality and the risk of all-cause and lung cancer-specific mortality to compare the efficacy of surgical treatment with radiotherapy in patients with stage I and II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were ≥80 years old. METHODS: We extracted data from the most recent Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results 9 registry study database (2010-2017). We mainly selected patients with stage I and II NSCLC who were ≥80 years old, and after screening, 7,045 cases were selected for our study. We used univariate analysis, stratified analysis, and multiple regression equation analysis to examine all-cause mortality and lung cancer-specific mortality in different treatment modalities. The overall and stratified populations' survival curves were plotted using the Kaplan-Meier method. The competing risk regression method of Fine and Gray was used to estimate mortality specific to lung cancer. RESULTS: In the fully adjusted model, all-cause mortality was 1.97 times higher in the radiotherapy-only group (hazard ration (HR) = 1.97, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.81-2.14, p < 0.0001) than in the surgery-only group. The lung cancer-specific mortality rate was 1.22 times higher in the radiotherapy-only group (HR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.13-1.32, p < 0.0001) than in the surgery-only group. The median overall survival (OS) in the surgery-only, radiation therapy-only, surgery plus radiation therapy, and no-treatment groups were 58 months, 31 months, 36 months, and 10 months, respectively. Median lung cancer-specific survival was 61 months, 32 months, 38 months, and 11 months, respectively. The surgery-only group had the highest 1-year OS (0.8679,95% CI = 0.8537-0.8824) and 5-year OS (0.4873, 95% CI = 0.4632-0.5126). CONCLUSIONS: Surgery had a higher overall and lung cancer-specific survival rate than radiotherapy and no treatment in the elderly early-stage NSCLC population. For patients with stage I and stage II NSCLC at advanced ages, surgical treatment might have a greater potential survival benefit.