Chest wall invasion in lung cancer patients

This study was performed to assess the prognosis in patients with non-small cell lung cancer invading the chest wall. In this study, the data from 43 patients who were operated on between January 1990-January 1998, for non-small cell lung cancer with pathologically verified parietal pleural and chest wall invasion were retrospectively reviewed. The median and 3-year survival of the population was calculated to be 16.8 months and 34%. The pathologic stages were T3N0 in 31 (72.09%) patients, T3N1 in 5 (11.62%) and T3N2 in 7 (16.27%). The median survival of the T3N0M0 patients was 24 months but in the same T3 population with pathologically verified N1 and N2, the median survival was 7.4 months (p < 0.01). A complete resection was achieved in 37 (86.84%) patients. The median and 3-year survival of the patients with complete resection were 20.60 months and 41% respectively. In six patients, who had incomplete resection, median survival was noted to be 7.4 months. Patients who received adjuvant radiotherapy in the N2 positive group and the incomplete resection group, did not benefit (p > 0.05). The results of this study confirmed that the lung cancer patients with chest wall invasion had different survival curves. The survival of patients changed according to the completeness of the resection and lymphatic metastases of either N1 or N2.