Purpose: N2 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a heterogeneous disease with an extremely wide range of 5-year survival rates. A composite method of sub-classification for N2 is likely to provide a more accurate method to more finely differentiate prognosis of N2 disease.
Methods: A total of 720 pN2 (T1-4N2M0) NSCLC cases were enrolled in our retrospective analysis of the proposed composite method.