Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment (PDQ®): Treatment - Health Professional Information [NCI]-Stage
Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment (PDQ®): Treatment - Health Professional Information [NCI]-Stages IIA and IIB NSCLC Treatment
Standard Treatment Options for Stages IIA and IIB NSCLC
Standard treatment options for stages IIA NSCLC and IIB NSCLC include the following:
Adjuvant radiation therapy has not been show to improve outcomes in patients with stages II NSCLC.
Surgery
Surgery is the treatment of choice for patients with stage II NSCLC. A lobectomy, pneumonectomy, or segmental resection, wedge resection, or sleeve resection may be performed as appropriate. Careful preoperative assessment of the patient's overall medical condition, especially the patient's pulmonary reserve, is critical in considering the benefits of surgery. Despite the immediate and age-related postoperative mortality rate, a 5% to 8% mortality rate with pneumonectomy or a 3% to 5% mortality rate with lobectomy can be expected.
Evidence (surgery):
Standard treatment options for stages IIA NSCLC and IIB NSCLC include the following:
- Surgery.
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
- Adjuvant chemotherapy.
- Radiation therapy.
Adjuvant radiation therapy has not been show to improve outcomes in patients with stages II NSCLC.
Surgery
Surgery is the treatment of choice for patients with stage II NSCLC. A lobectomy, pneumonectomy, or segmental resection, wedge resection, or sleeve resection may be performed as appropriate. Careful preoperative assessment of the patient's overall medical condition, especially the patient's pulmonary reserve, is critical in considering the benefits of surgery. Despite the immediate and age-related postoperative mortality rate, a 5% to 8% mortality rate with pneumonectomy or a 3% to 5% mortality rate with lobectomy can be expected.
Evidence (surgery):
- The Cochrane Collaboration group reviewed 11 randomized trials with a total of 1,910 patients who underwent surgical interventions for early-stage (I-IIIA) lung cancer.[1] A pooled analysis of three trials reported the following:
- Four-year survival was superior in patients with resectable stage I, II, or IIIA NSCLC who underwent resection and complete ipsilateral mediastinal lymph node dissection (CMLND), compared with those who underwent resection and lymph node sampling; the hazard ratio (HR) was estimated to be 0.78 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65-0.93; P = .005).[1][Level of evidence: 1iiA]
- There was a significant reduction in any cancer recurrence (local or distant) in the CMLND group (relative risk [RR], 0.79; 95% CI, 0.66-0.95; P = .01) that appeared mainly as the result of a reduction in the number of distant recurrences (RR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.61-1.00; P = .05).
- There was no difference in operative mortality.
- Air leak lasting more than 5 days was significantly more common in patients assigned to CMLND (RR, 2.94; 95% CI, 1.01-8.54; P = .05).
- Current evidence suggests that lung cancer resection combined with CMLND is associated with a small-to-modest improvement in survival compared with lung cancer resection combined with systematic sampling of mediastinal nodes in patients with stage I, II, or IIIA NSCLC.[1][Level of evidence: 1iiA]
- CMLND versus lymph node sampling was evaluated in a large randomized phase III trial (ACOSOG-Z0030).[2]
- Preliminary analyses of operative morbidity and mortality showed comparable rates from the procedures.[2]
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