Vessel invasion as a predictive factor for recurrence after surgery in stage I lung adenocarcinoma

Patients with early-stage lung cancer who underwent R0 resection often encounter disease recurrence, especially during the early phase; thus, it is deemed vital to determine the predictive factors for recurrence after surgery. In this study, we aimed to identify the independent variables associated with recurrence after complete surgical resection of pathological stage I lung adenocarcinoma.

We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 169 patients who underwent pulmonary resection for primary lung adenocarcinoma pathological stage I with curative intent lung cancer surgery from 2015 to December 2018 at our institution for information on the recurrence of the disease.

Per the multivariate analysis, the presence of micropapillary pattern and vessel invasion were found to be independent predictors of disease recurrence after surgery (odds ratio [OR]: 9.36, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.42-36.2, P = 0.0012; and OR: 4.50, 95% CI: 1.52-13.4, P = 0.0068, respectively). Vessel invasion was also found to be an independent predictor of disease recurrence after surgery within a year (OR 11.4, 95% CI 3.08-42.5, P = 0.0003).

The presence of vessel invasion may help in distinguishing patients with the highest risk of early-phase disease recurrence after surgery. Patients with stage I adenocarcinoma with vessel invasion should undergo intensive surveillance after surgery.