Adjuvant chemotherapy following surgical resection improves survival in patients with early-stage small cell lung cancer.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of resection coupled with standard chemotherapy on the survival prognosis of patients with early stage small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC). Patients (n= 110) with mediastinal lymph node-negative SCLC were enrolled in this study. The baseline clinical data of patients with surgery were retrospectively reviewed. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were measured by Kaplan-Meier and log-rank test analyses. Ninety-eight patients received mediastinoscopy biopsy, and pulmonary lobectomy or sublobar resection, and 67 patients underwent adjuvant chemotherapy after pulmonary lobectomy. Adjuvant chemotherapy after surgical intervention was associated with longer OS (median OS: 42.14 vs. 33.53 months, p=0.01) and PFS (median PFS: 25.20 vs. 13.48 months, p= 0.000) compared to resection alone for all patients. Adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with improvement of survival for Ni patients with stage II (median OS: 36.42 vs. 26.68 months, p= 0.021). The median PFS was 19.02 m (16.08, 21.96) and 13.25 m (10.19, 16.30) (p= 0.031), respectively, for patients of NI stage who received chemotherapy and those who did not. Cox regression analysis demonstrated that age, TNM stage (N stage, not T stage), and chemotherapy were independent risk factors that might affect overall survival in patients with mediastinal lymph node-negative SCLC. These findings suggest that the application of adjuvant chemotherapy following pulmonary lobectomy is associated with improvements of survival prognoses for patients with SCLC. The combination of surgical intervention with conventional therapy should be taken into consideration as a prospective multidisciplinary regimen for early stage SCLC.