Evaluation of prognostic factors on survival in non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with postoperative radiotherapy

OBJECTIVES To investigate the prognostic factors on survival in non-small-cell lung cancer patients treated with postoperative radiotherapy. METHODS Sixty-five patients treated with a median dose of 59 Gy (50-66.6 Gy) between October 1995 and January 2005 were included in the study. Clinical and categorical variables were analyzed. RESULTS On multivariate analysis, presence of clinical N2 and brain metastasis at first relapse and absence of chemotherapy (p=0.02, p=0.004, p=0.004) had a negative impact on overall survival, while presence of pathological nodal involvement and absence of chemotherapy (p=0.02, p=0.04) were effective on disease-free survival. Regarding categorical variables, type of resection was found related with positive margin and N1, right-sided location with N1-e and N2, and systematic nodal dissection with N1. The number of involved lymph nodes was found related with N2 skip metastasis and involved N1-10 was related with N1-e. CONCLUSION Presence of metastatic lymph nodes was found to be a poor prognostic factor and delivery of chemotherapy was seen to positively affect overall and disease-free survival rates.