Surgical Outcomes of Complex Versus Simple Segmentectomy for Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

As segmentectomy becomes widely used for lung cancer treatment, complex segmentectomy, which makes several, intricate intersegmental planes, remains controversial because of procedural complexity and risk of increased complications and incurability. Questions remain about mortality, morbidity, surgical margin, lymph nodes dissection, and postoperative pulmonary function. We evaluated operative and postoperative outcomes of complex compared with simple segmentectomy.

We retrospectively reviewed patients with clinical stage I lung cancer who could tolerate lobectomy and underwent complex or simple segmentectomy between April 2007 and March 2017. Clinicopathologic, operative, and postoperative results of the complex (n = 117) and simple (n = 92) segmentectomy groups were compared.

No statistically significant differences were detected in age, sex, comorbidities, preoperative pulmonary function, tumor histology, and size. Although only median operative time (180 versus 143.5 minutes, p < 0.0001) was significantly longer in the complex group, 30-day mortality (0% versus 0%), overall complications (24.8% versus 22.8%), and prolonged air leakage (11.9% versus 10.9%) were nearly equivalent between the two groups, respectively. The complex group showed comparable results in median surgical margin distance (16.0 versus 17.5 mm) and number of dissected lymph nodes (6.0 versus 7.0 nodes). Margin relapse occurred in 2 patients in the simple group but none occurred in the complex group. Both groups also showed similar postoperative pulmonary functions.

Complex segmentectomy is a safe option in the treatment of lung cancers with adequate operative outcomes.