Correlation between outcomes and tumor size in >7 cm T4 non-small cell lung cancer patients: A tumor size-based comparison study.

Background: We investigated whether all size-based pathological T4N0-N1 non-small cell lung cancer patients with tumors at any size >7 cm had the same outcomes.

Methods: We reviewed non-small cell lung cancer patients with tumors >7 cm who underwent anatomical lung resection between 2010 and 2016. A total of 251 size-based T4N0-N1 patients were divided into two groups based on tumor size. Group S ( = 192) included patients with tumors of 7.1-9.9 cm and Group L ( = 59) as tumor size ≥10 cm.

Results: The mean tumor size was 8.83 ± 1.7 cm (Group S: 8.06 ± 0.6 cm, Group L: 11.3 ± 1.6 cm). There were 146 patients with pathological N0 and 105 patients with pathological N1 disease. Mean overall survival and disease-free survival were 64.2 and 51.4 months, respectively. The five-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 51.2% and 43.5% (five-year OS; pT4N0:52.7%, pT4N1:47.9%, DFS; pT4N0:44.3%, pT4N1: 42.3%). No significant differences were observed between T4N0 and T4N1 patients in terms of five-year OS or DFS ( = 0.325,  = 0.505 respectively). The five-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 52% and 44.6% in Group S, and 48.5% and 38.9% in Group L. No significant difference was observed between the groups in terms of five-year overall survival or disease-free survival ( = 0.699,  = 0.608, respectively).

Conclusions: Above 7 cm, any further increase in tumor size in non-small cell lung cancer patients had no significant effect on survival, confirming it is not necessary to further discriminate among patients with tumors in that size class.