• Yong Soo Choi, Young Mog Shim, Jhingook Kim, and Kwhanmien Kim.
• Department of Thoracic Surgery, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.
• Eur J Cardiothorac Surg. 2002 Nov 1; 22 (5): 695-700.

ObjectiveWe sought to evaluate recurrence pattern and prognostic factors of recurrence-free survival in surgically resected N2 non-small cell lung cancer.MethodsBetween September 1994 and December 1999, 564 patients underwent operation for non-small cell lung cancer at our institute. Of these 564 patients, 101 patients were found to have pathologic N2 disease. Systematic mediastinal lymph node dissection was performed in all these patients. Recurrence was determined and nineteen clinicopathologic prognostic factors were evaluated in relation to recurrence-free survival.ResultsComplete resection rate was 83.2% and overall 5-year survival was 23.3%. Locoregional and distant metastasis were detected in 50 of 101 patients (49.5%) during follow-up. Five-year recurrence-free survival was 19.6%. Among 19 clinicopathologic prognostic factors, incomplete resection and non-downstaging after neoadjuvant therapy were unfavorable prognostic factors in univariate analyses. Clinical N2 status, multiple N2 nodes, and cell type of adenocarcinoma showed poor prognosis but were not statistically significant. Postoperative chemotherapy showed good prognosis but was not statistically significant. Multivariate analysis showed that significant favorable prognostic factors were complete resection and adjuvant chemotherapy.ConclusionsComplete resection and responsiveness to neoadjuvant therapy were the most important favorable prognostic factors in recurrence-free survival. Postoperative chemotherapy was also a favorable prognostic factor but not statistically significant in recurrence-free survival in pN2 non-small cell lung cancer.Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science B.V.

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