Prognosis of segmentectomy and lobectomy for radiologically aggressive small-sized lung cancer

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to determine the radiological characteristics of aggressive small-sized lung cancer and to compare the outcomes between segmentectomy and lobectomy in patients with these lung cancers. METHODS A series of 1046 patients with clinical stage IA1–IA2 lung cancer who underwent lobectomy or segmentectomy at 3 institutions was retrospectively evaluated to identify radiologically aggressive small-sized (solid tumour size ≤ 2 cm) lung cancers. Prognosis of segmentectomy was compared with that of lobectomy in 522 patients with radiologically aggressive small-sized lung cancer using propensity score matching. RESULTS Multivariable analysis showed that increasing consolidation-to-tumour ratio on preoperative high-resolution computed tomography (CT) (P = 0.037) and maximum standardized uptake on 18 fluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography/CT (P = 0.029) was independently associated with worse recurrence-free survival. Based on analysis of the receiver operating characteristic curve, radiologically aggressive lung cancer was defined as a radiologically solid (consolidation-to-tumour ratio ≥ 0.8) or highly metabolic (maximum standardized uptake ≥ 2.5) tumour. Among patients with radiologically aggressive lung cancer, no significant statistical differences in 5-year recurrence-free (81% vs 90%; P = 0.33) and overall (88% vs 93%; P = 0.76) survival comparing lobectomy (n = 392) to segmentectomy (n = 130) were observed. Among 115 propensity-matched pairs, 5-year recurrence-free survival and overall survival were similar between patients who underwent lobectomy and those who underwent segmentectomy (83.3% and 88.3% vs 90.9% and 94.5%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Difference in survival was not identified with segmentectomy and lobectomy in patients with radiologically aggressive small-sized lung cancer with high risk of recurrence.