it between 2 to 6 months. The average Medicare cost associated with patients that received PET was significantly higher than that of patients that did not receive PET scan ($60,417 vs. $34,287; p<0.001). Chemotherapy and radiation were given in a higher proportion of patients that received PET versus those that did not receive it (56% and 45% versus 26% and 36% respectively; p<0.001). Though univariate analysis revealed that a PET scan within a year of diagnosis was associated with better 1-year survival (HR 0.87, P<0.001), this did not translate into overall survival advantage on multivariable analysis (HR 0.99, P¼0.56). Conclusion: The utilization of PET scan in stage IV NSCLC patients was associated with higher cost, but without a tangible improvement in survival compared to those that did not have a PET scan.
Small ground‐glass opacity intrapulmonary lesions without preoperative histological diagnosis are difficult to localise in minimal invasive thoracic surgery, especially in robotic‐assisted surgery which has limited haptic feedback. Here we present two cases of using the LungPoint Virtual Bronchoscopic Navigation system for indocyanine green injection to assist with localization during robotic thoracic surgery, which might be a safe and feasible technique for such cases with impalpable lesions with no prior histological proof.
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