Lymph Node Status in the Different Histologic Subtypes of Lung Adenocarcinoma

OBJECTIVE: Lymph node status represents a relevant prognostic factor in lung adenocarcinoma. Some authors proved that the histologic subtype is the most reliable predictive factor of lymph node status. In addition, a correlation between molecular profile of adenocarcinoma and lymph node metastases has recently been proved. This fact induces a necessity to assess the existence of a difference in lymph node status between the newly identified histologic subtypes of lung adenocarcinoma. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In order to explore this hypothesis, 70 surgically resected specimen of lung adenocarcinoma with lymph node dissection were reviewed retrospectively and reclassified according to the new classification of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS). RESULTS : The relation between lymph node stage and the histologic subtypes was evaluated with the chi-square test and we established that there was a statistical difference between histologic subtypes of lymph node metastases. CONCLUSION: This result should be confirmed by other multivariate studies using statistical tests with greater power.