Objective::To preliminarily investigate the values of failure mode and postoperative radiotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with chest wall invasion.Methods:A total of 69 T 3 stage NSCLC patients who underwent thoracic surgery in our hospital from 2010 to 2018 and presented with postoperative pathological findings of chest wall invasion were recruited. The outcomes between the post-operative radiotherapy and non-radiotherapy groups were assessed by propsensity matching analysis. Kaplan- Meier survival analysis and Cox’s model prognostic factors analysis were performed. Results:The median survival time of 69 patients was 25 months and the median progression-free survival was 8 months. Thirty-six cases were diagnosed with primary stage M 0 including 28 cases (78%) of R 0 resection and 33 cases (48%) were diagnosed with stage M 1a and received non-R 0 resection because of pleural metastases. In total, 53 cases (77%) suffered from disease progression, and 26 cases (38%) experienced local recurrence including 58% of mediastinal lymph node recurrence and 36% of chest wall tumor bed recurrence. Distant metastases were observed in 50 cases (73%) including 43% of pleural metastases. Univariate analysis showed that age, pathological staging, range of primary lesion invasion, postoperative radiotherapy and postoperative targeted therapy were significantly associated with overall survival (all P<0.05). The overall survival in the postoperative radiotherapy group was better than that in the non-radiotherapy group. No statistical difference was observed in the progression-free survival, local recurrence-free survival and distant metastasis-free survival between two groups (all P>0.05). Conclusions:For NSCLC patients with chest wall invasion, distal metastasis failure is the main cause, while local failure mainly consists of mediastinal lymph node and chest wall recurrence. Postoperative radiotherapy may improve survival. Nevertheless, the combination and benefit degree of postoperative comprehensive treatment need to be further confirmed by prospective studies.

Currently,lung cancer is the most common malignant tumor in the world.The local control (LC) rate is only 20％-40％ for patients with local advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).Hence,reducing the LC rate and enhancing the overall survival (OS) are pivotal research objectives.However,postoperative adjuvant treatment for patients with early NSCLC with chest wall invasion is still controversial.In this article,the research progress on T3 N0-1M0 NSCLC with chest wall invasion was reviewed from the perspectives including anatomical features,types of resection,patterns of failure and postoperative radiotherapy,etc.