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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 2004;26:1205-1210
© 2004 Elsevier Science NL

Preoperative chemotherapy with and without additional radiochemotherapy: benefit and risk for surgery of stage III non-small cell lung cancer

^a Departments of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Hematology/Oncology and Respiratory Medicine, Radiation Oncology, and Biomathematics, University Hospital, Münster, Germany
^b Department of Thoracic Surgery, Lung Clinic, Hemer, Germany

Received 11 December 2003; received in revised form 25 July 2004; accepted 3 August 2004.

^* Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 251 834 7401; fax: +49 251 834 8316. (E-mail: michael.semik{at}ukmuenster.de).

Objective: Multi-modality approaches are increasingly employed to improve prognosis in surgically treated stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Risk and benefit of the preoperative therapeutic chemotherapy or combined radiochemotherapy on surgical morbidity and mortality are still a matter of debate. Methods: In 1995, a national phase III trial was started to compare (arm A) preoperative chemotherapy followed by twice-daily chemoradiation and consecutive surgery, with (arm B) preoperative chemotherapy alone followed by surgery and consecutive radiotherapy. An interim analysis with 277 patients was performed to assess surgical risk and complication rates. Results: Of the 385 patients, 273 (71%) underwent thoracotomy, 130 (73%) in arm A and 143 (69%) in arm B. Of the 273 patients undergoing thoracotomy, 168 had stage IIIB disease. Complete resection (R0) was achieved in 212 patients (78%), 104 in arm A (80%) and 108 in arm B (76%) (P=n.s.). There was no difference in the proportion of complex resections between treatment arms (41% in arm A; 48% in arm B). Whilst bronchial stump insufficiency (3.8 vs 2.1%) and bleeding requiring re-thoracotomy (1.5 vs 0.7%) prevailed slightly in arm A, the occurrence of pneumonia divided similar on both treatment arms (4.6 vs 4.9%). Surgical mortality reached 6.1% in arm A (8/130) and 5.6% in arm B (6/143) (P=n.s.). Conclusions: In both treatment arms, a similar percentage of patients could be forwarded to surgery, even in stage IIIB disease. Bimodality induction seems to be superior with regard to resection rates (R0) (n.s.), but was associated with a higher complication rate, especially bronchial stump insufficiency.

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