Impact of facility type and volume in locally advanced esophageal cancer.

Background: We hypothesized that academic facilities and high-volume facilities would be independently associated with improved survival and a greater propensity for performing surgery in locally advanced esophageal cancer.

Methods: We identified patients diagnosed with stage IB-III esophageal cancer during 2004-2016 from the National Cancer Database. Facility type was categorized as academic or community, and facility volume was based on the number of times a facility's unique identification code appeared in the dataset.

Prospective Cohort Study to Compare Long-Term Lung Cancer-Specific and All-Cause Survival of Clinical Early Stage (T1a-b; ≤20 mm) NSCLC Treated by Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy and Surgery.

Introduction: We aimed to compare outcomes of patients with first primary clinical T1a-bN0M0 NSCLC treated with surgery or stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).

Methods: We identified patients with first primary clinical T1a-bN0M0 NSCLCs on last pretreatment computed tomography treated by surgery or SBRT in the following two prospective cohorts: International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) and Initiative for Early Lung Cancer Research on Treatment (IELCART). Lung cancer-specific survival and all-cause survival after diagnosis were compared using Kaplan-Meier analysis.

Treatment quality and outcomes vary with hospital burden of uninsured and Medicaid patients with cancer in early non-small cell lung cancer.

Objectives: Safety-net hospitals deliver a significant level of care to uninsured patients, Medicaid-enrolled patients, and other vulnerable patients. Little is known about the impact of safety-net hospital status on outcomes in non-small cell lung cancer. We aimed to compare treatment characteristics and outcomes between hospitals categorized according to their relative burden of uninsured or Medicaid-enrolled patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Increasing Time-to-Treatment for Lung Cancer: Are We Going Backward?

Background: Treatment delays in lung cancer care in the United States may be attributable to a diverse range of patient, provider, and institutional factors, the precise contributions of which remain unclear. The objective of our study was to use the National Cancer Database to investigate specific predictors of increased time-to-treatment initiation.

Methods: We identified 567 783 patients undergoing treatment for stage I to stage IV non-small cell lung cancer during 2010 to 2018.

Conversion to Thoracotomy in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Risk Factors and Perioperative Outcomes.

: We aimed to identify predictors of conversion to thoracotomy and test the hypothesis that conversion is associated with inferior perioperative outcomes in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). : We queried the National Cancer Database for patients with stage I to III NSCLC undergoing minimally invasive surgery (MIS) during 2010 to 2016. We compared clinicopathologic factors between patients undergoing MIS with and without conversion.