[Surgical results on N2 lung cancer with special reference to correlation between tumor size and extension of lymph...

Systematic lymph node dissection was performed for every patients undergoing surgical intervention. Since 1981, there were 218 stage IIIA-N2 patients who underwent resection with two operative mortality. The five-year survival rate of whole cases was 22.6%, and that of 152 completely resected cases was 30.0%. Favorable factors on long-term survival of pN2 patients were cN0, T1-2 N2M0, single mediastinal node involvement, and tumor less than 20 mm or less. The five-year survival rates of stage IIIA-N2 patients with tumor diameter of < or = 20 mm, 21-30 mm, 31-50 mm, and > or = 51 mm were 48.1%, 27.7%, 31.2%, and 16.7%, respectively. When micrometastases to lymph node in the p-stage I patients (diagnosed by H-E staining) were examined by immunohistochemical staining, 36 patients (27%) out of 132 verified micrometastases in the lymph nodes.