Surgical treatment for lung cancer in octogenarians.
OBJECTIVE
We conducted this study in order to determine how we should perform the surgical treatment for clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in octogenarians.


METHODS
Thirty-three octogenarians with clinical stage I NSCLC participated in this study. They were retrospectively divided into two groups: one group of 11 patients who underwent a lymph node dissection (ND group), and one group of 22 patients who did not undergo this procedure (ND0 group). We analyzed the surgical invasiveness, morbidity, mortality, and survival in both groups.


RESULTS
The morbidity rate in the ND group (45%) was higher than that in the ND0 group (23%); however, the difference was no statistically significant (P = 0.1805). There was no significant difference in the overall survival rates of the two groups (P = 0.1647), and the median survival time of the ND0 group (76 months) was slightly longer than that of the ND group (26 months). There was no significant difference in local recurrence rate between the two groups (9.1% vs 4.5%, P = 0.6059).


CONCLUSIONS
We thus conclude that a limited operation without lymph node dissection might be the best surgical treatment for carefully selected octogenarians with clinical stage I NSCLC.
Muraoka
Masashi
M
Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Translational Medical Sciences, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki, Japan.
Oka
Tadayuki
T
Akamine
Shinji
S
Tagawa
Tsutomu
T
Sasaki
Nobufumi
N
Ikuta
Yasushi
Y
Inoue
Masao
M
Yamayoshi
Takatomo
T
Hashizume
Satoshi
S
Tagawa
Yutaka
Y
Nagayasu
Takeshi
T
D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002289:Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / Q000601:surgery*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome