Abstract
BACKGROUND: Primary lung cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide. Surgical resection remains the first choice for the treatment of early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Relapse after surgery sharply reduces the patient's life expectancy. This relapse is referred to as isolated postsurgical local recurrences or metastases (IPSLROM), which can be treated via local therapy to achieve long-term survival or cure. In recent years, radiofrequency ablation (RFA) has been increasingly used as a non-surgical treatment option for patients with primary and metastatic lung tumors. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of RFA among patients with IPSLROM of NSCLC. METHODS: A total of 20 patients underwent computerd tomograghy (CT)-guided RFA for lung neoplasm with IPSLROM of NSCLC (with unresectable disease because of poor lung reserve or multifocality) in our hospital between December 2008 and November 2013. These patients comprised 15 males and 5 females with a mean age of 69.2 years (range: 45-85). All patients exhibited pathological evidence of neoplastic lesion (14 tumors were adenocarcinoma, and six were squamous cell carcinoma). The mean size of the lesions was 3.9 cm (range: 2.0 cm to 8.0 cm). Treatment complications, progression-free survival (PFS), and survival parameters were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: RFA was well tolerated by all patients with an average time of 34.3 min (range: 15 min to 60 min). Intraprocedural complications included eight cases of chest pain (40%). No procedure-related deaths occurred in all of the 20 ablation procedures. The median PFS was 25 months in all of the patients who received RFA. The median overall survival for the entire group of patients was 27.0 months. No differences were observed in the overall survival between patients with IPSLROM. The overall survival rates at 1 and 2 years after RFA were 92.9% and 57.0%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: RFA is a safe and effective procedure in unresectable lung tumors with IPSLROM of NSCLC.