A rapid increase in surgery rates for spinal stenosis was identified over a 14-year period. The wide geographic variations and substantial complication rate from this elective surgical procedure (partly related to patient age) suggest a need for more information on the relative efficacy of surgical and nonsurgical treatments for this condition. The risks and benefits of particular surgical procedures for specific clinical and demographic subgroups as well as individual patient preferences regarding surgical risks and possible outcomes should also be evaluated further. These issues are likely to become increasingly important with the aging of the US population.

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7535 Background: Identification of pathologic features able to predict outcomes in resected stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) may help to further stratify patients into risk groups, allowing for further refinement of adjuvant treatment recommendations. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate whether the presence of lymphovacular invasion (LVI) is associated with disease outcome in stage I NSCLC patients. Methods: A systematic search of the literature was performed (1990 to December 2012; Medline/Embase) using search terms related to lymphovascular invasion, lung cancer and prognosis. Studies were considered eligible if they reported the outcome of lung cancer in patients with LVI compared to those without. Pooled Hazard Ratios (HR) were estimated with a random effects model. Two different endpoints were independently analyzed: recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS). We analyzed both unadjusted and adjusted effect estimates, for a total of four separate meta-analyses. Several studies presented multiple results (i.e. adjusted and unadjusted and/or recurrence-free and overall survival) and were therefore included in more than one pooled analysis. Results: Of 2,878 titles identified, 20 articles met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 5 studies were excluded from the analysis due to duplication of results (n=4) and lack of data to calculate HR (n=1). The unadjusted models consisted of 808 (RFS) and 1675 (OS) patients, while the adjusted models consisted of 1,545 (RFS) and 2,601 (OS). The unadjusted pooled effect of LVI was significantly associated with worse both RFS (HR: 4.71, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 3.08-7.21), and OS (HR: 3.05, 95% CI: 2.34-3.98). Adjusting for potential confounders yielded the same results with both RFS (HR: 2.49, 95% CI: 1.6-3.89), and OS (HR: 1.80, 95% CI: 1.44-2.25) being significantly worse for patients exhibiting LVI in their pathologic specimens. Conclusions: The present study indicates that LVI is an adverse prognostic factor in patients with surgically managed stage I lung cancer. Based on these results, the use of LVI as a stratifying factor in future prospective lung cancer trials seems to be justifiable.

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