BACKGROUNDTo study the prognostic factors in patients with lung cancer after curative resection.

METHODSA retrospective study was conducted on 210 cases of clinicopathological survival data of lung cancer patients who underwent surgical resection from January 1987 to December 1999. Nine conventional prognostic factors were analyzed by COX model.

RESULTSThe overall 3-, 5- and 10-year survival rates were 37.4%, 30.1% and 23.5% respectively. Univariate analysis showed that regional lymph nodes status (N), primary tumor status (T), histological type of lung cancer, the type of operation and curability of surgical resection were significantly related to disease specific survival. Multivariate analysis showed that regional lymph nodes status, primary tumor status and curability of surgical resection were the three independent predictors of long term outcome. The hazard ratio of death was 2.42 for patients with N2-3 vs N0-1( P =0.000 1), 3.50 for patients with T2-4 vs T1( P =0.033 0) and 1.77 for patients with incomplete resection vs complete resection ( P =0.022 4).

CONCLUSIONSPrimary tumor status, regional lymph nodes status and curability of surgical resection are the three important prognostic factors of lung cancer. In order to improve long-term survival of lung cancer patients, it is very important to operate in the earlier stage of tumor, to extensively dissect intra-pulmonary and ipsilateral mediastinal lymph nodes and to avoid incomplete resection.