Chest
Clinical InvestigationsCANCERCorrelation of Tumor Size and Survival in Patients With Stage IA Non-small Cell Lung Cancer
Section snippets
Patients
The Thoracic Oncology and Comprehensive Cancer Center tumor registries at our institution retrospectively identified 510 consecutive patients, 285 men and 225 women, with a mean age of 63 years (range, 31 to 90 years) with surgically resected, pathologic stage IA (T1N0M0) non-small cell lung cancer. The surgical and pathologic reports were reviewed to ensure that appropriate size, histology, and stage were recorded.
One hundred ninety-five patients (38%) had squamous cell carcinoma, 235 patients
Linear Effects of Tumor Size
Tumor size was incorporated into the Cox proportional hazards model as a linear effect on survival, and was not found to be statistically significant (regression coefficient, 1.08; standard error of estimate, 0.196; likelihood ratio test p value, 0.701). The distribution of tumor size is shown in Figure 1 .
Effect of Tumor Size Categorized Into Four Strata
Tumor size was then classified into quartiles. The tumor size category, number of patients, and number of deaths are shown in Table 1 . The Cox model did not show a statistically significant
Discussion
Despite continued advances in diagnostic techniques, treatment protocols, and tumor biology, the survival rate for lung cancer has shown only minimal improvements over the past several decades. Most patients still present with advanced disease, at which time therapeutic options are less than optimal.1
One strategy directed at improving outcome is screening and early detection. It has been suggested that if lesions are discovered when small, patients will have an earlier stage of disease, and
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