Skip metastasis in non-small cell lung cancer: does it affect the prognosis?

Background: This study aims to examine skip metastases in patients who had resection due to non-small cell lung cancer. Methods: A total of 111 patients (94 males, 17 females; mean age: 58.9 +/- 10.2 years; range 35 to 82 years) who were diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer and in whom an ipsilateral mediastinal lymph node metastasis was detected based on the pathological examination of the R0 pulmonary resection samples between January 2005 and December 2011 in our clinic were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were divided into two groups: the skip metastasis group (sN2) (group 1, n=55) [N1(-), N2(+)] and non-skip ipsilateral mediastinal lymph node metastasis group (nsN2) (group 2, n=56) [N1(+), N2(+)]. Results: The median survival was 25 months and five-year overall survival rate was 13% for both study groups. Five-year overall survival rate was higher in group 1, compared to group 2 (20% vs. 7.4%, respectively), although the difference was not statistically significant (p=0.084). Conclusion: Our study results show that five-year overall survival rates of operable patients with skip metastases are higher than those without skip metastases, although the difference is not statistically significant.