title: [Long-term outcome of lung cancer patients treated with surgical resection: A report of 210 cases].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To study the prognostic factors in patients with lung cancer after curative resection.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective study was conducted on 210 cases of clinicopathological survival data of lung cancer patients who underwent surgical resection from January 1987 to December 1999. Nine conventional prognostic factors were analyzed by COX model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall 3-, 5- and 10-year survival rates were 37.4%, 30.1% and 23.5% respectively. Univariate analysis showed that regional lymph nodes status (N), primary tumor status (T), histological type of lung cancer, the type of operation and curability of surgical resection were significantly related to disease specific survival. Multivariate analysis showed that regional lymph nodes status, primary tumor status and curability of surgical resection were the three independent predictors of long term outcome. The hazard ratio of death was 2.42 for patients with N2-3 vs N0-1( P =0.000 1), 3.50 for patients with T2-4 vs T1( P =0.033 0) and 1.77 for patients with incomplete resection vs complete resection ( P =0.022 4).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Primary tumor status, regional lymph nodes status and curability of surgical resection are the three important prognostic factors of lung cancer. In order to improve long-term survival of lung cancer patients, it is very important to operate in the earlier stage of tumor, to extensively dissect intra-pulmonary and ipsilateral mediastinal lymph nodes and to avoid incomplete resection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Medical College, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong 515041, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Limin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Mingke
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: Hailing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zhiyong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Weiyan
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao