Results of pneumonectomy for non-small cell lung cancer: appropriateness of the new TNM staging system.

Prognostic Value of Stage Grouping and TNM Descriptors in Lung Cancer

“…Many investigators have tested the new ISSLC by trying to fit their survival data, 5,8,[23][24][25][26] and many commentators already have discussed the merits and demerits of the introduced changes. [2][3][4]8,9,27 Others have posed specific questions, including the opportunity of splitting stage I into two stages, 5 moving T3N0M0 disease into stage IIB, 5,25 assessing the role of satellite nodules, 24 and reconsidering the need for a stage IIA. 26,28 Inoue and colleagues 5 investigated the prognosis of 1,310 patients who underwent resection for NSCLC.…”

“…They, like others, 9 concluded that splitting stage I into stages IA and IA or putting T3N0M0 tumors into stage IIB was a sound decision. Mizushima and collaborators 25 studied the appropriateness of the new ISSLC with special emphasis on the T3N0M0 tumor group. 6 They analyzed 119 patients with NSCLC who had undergone pneumonectomy.…”

“…In this group, the authors reported a 5-year survival rate of 69.6%, which was superior even to the 55.7% found in the T1N1M0 and T2N1M0 subsets. Mizushima et al 25 also concluded that down-staging the T3N0M0 tumor group was appropriate. Our data are in fair agreement with these reports.…”