Non-small cell lung cancer resection in lymphoma patients

Lymphoma patients are at an increased risk of developing secondary malignancies, including lung cancer. It is unknown if these patients are at higher risk of dying from pulmonary resection due to lymphoma or if they have reasonable long-term survival.

We identified 47 lymphoma patients, seven of which had active lymphoma and forty with a history of lymphoma, who underwent resection for lung cancer between 1998 and 2008. We matched lymphoma patients with lung cancer patients who had no lymphoma based on age, gender, surgery type, comorbidities, stage, and histology. We analyzed differences in the length of hospitalization, morbidity, mortality, and overall and lung cancer specific survival between the lymphoma group and the matched no lymphoma group.

We found no significant difference in length of hospitalization, morbidity, or mortality between the lymphoma and matched no lymphoma group. The lymphoma group's 5-year overall survival rate (35%) was significantly lower than that of the no lymphoma group (67%; p = 0.04). However, the difference in lung cancer-specific survival between the groups was not significant. The cause-of-death analysis revealed that lymphoma patients also died from recurrent lymphoma or myelodysplastic syndrome-acute myeloid leukemia. Multivariate analysis revealed that older age, higher stage, and active lymphoma status were significant adverse predictors of survival.

There is no significant increase in operative morbidity and mortality for lymphoma patients having pulmonary resection for lung cancer. The survival for lymphoma patients is decreased but still acceptable with no difference in lung cancer-specific survival.