Objectives: During the last decades, pneumonectomy has been increasingly seen as a risky procedure, first reserved for tumours not amenable to lobectomy, and now discouraged even in advanced stages of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Our purpose was to assess the long-term survival following pneumonectomy for NSCLC and its prognostic factors.
Methods: We set a retrospective study including every patient who underwent a pneumonectomy for NSCLC in 2 French centres from 1981 to 2002. We then described the demographic and pathological characteristics of patients who survived >10 years, and studied the prognostic factors of long-term survival.
Results: During the study period, 1466 pneumonectomies were performed for NSCLC, including 1121 standard and 345 extended, and accounted for the overall population. Postoperative complications occurred in 396 patients (27%), including 93 deaths (6.3%). Five- and 10-year survival rates were 32 and 19%, respectively. Two-hundred and fifty patients survived >10 years after surgery, and accounted for the study group. The study group included a majority of males (n = 230, 92%), a mean age of 57 ± 9.2 years and a majority of clinical stage IIIA (n = 117, 46.8%). Induction, right-sided pneumonectomy, extended resection and adjuvant therapy were performed in 41 (16.4%), 109 (43.6%), 40 (16%) and 97 patients (38.8%), respectively. Histology revealed a majority of squamous cell carcinoma (n = 181, 72.4%), T2 tumours (n = 117, 36.8%) and N1 disease (n = 105, 42%). In multivariate analysis, factors associated with adverse outcomes included older age, advanced stage, extended resection, non-lethal postoperative complication, adenocarcinoma, lymphatic vessel microinvasion, N1 and N2 disease and R1 and R2 resection.
Conclusions: During the last 30 years, pneumonectomy was effectively performed for advanced NSCLC, allowing a 10-year survival rate of 19%. Such results have not been reported with other non-surgical treatments and confirm that pneumonectomy is still an essential weapon in the armamentarium against lung cancer.
Keywords: Long-term survival; Non-small-cell lung cancer; Pneumonectomy.