Purpose: To compare the efficacy of chemoradiotherapy or surgery for limited-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC).
Patients and methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 138 patients with limited-stage SCLC who received surgery (69 patients) or chemoradiotherapy (69 patients) between January 2000 and September 2016 in Zhejiang Cancer Hospital. Patients of the chemoradiotherapy group were selected by using “pair-matched case-control” methodology from a cohort of 503 patients who received chemoradiotherapy.
Results: The major prognostic factors, including T, N stage, treatment duration, age, gender, and whether or not they received prophylactic cranial irradiation were well balanced between two groups. The median overall survival (OS) time and 5-year OS rate were 37.1 months and 45.0% in the surgical group vs 45.0 months and 45.0% in the chemoradiotherapy group (P =0.846). The median progression-free survival (PFS) time and 5-year PFS rate were 27.1 months and 37.8% vs 36.2 months and 40.0%, respectively, in the two groups (P =0.610). The 5-year OS rate (62.3% vs 40.1%, P =0.038) and 5-year PFS rate (80.1% vs 40.1%, P =0.048) in the surgical group were significantly higher than those of the chemoradiotherapy group in patients with stage I disease. The 5-year OS rate (41.2% vs 50.6%, P =0.946) and 5-year PFS rate (64.7% vs 42.1%, P =0.280) of surgery for stage II SCLC were comparable to chemoradiotherapy. As for stage III SCLC, compared with the surgical group, the chemoradiotherapy group had a better 5-year OS trend (25.1% vs 47.6%, P =0.220), but the difference did not reach statistical significance.
Conclusion: Surgery could confer survival benefits in patients with p-stage I disease, but not in patients with p-stage II and III disease.
Keywords: SCLC, survival, prognosis, lung cancer, surgery, chemoradiotherapy