THE INFLUENCE OF THE TIME INTERVAL BETWEEN SURGERY AND POSTOPERATIVE RADIOTHERAPY UPON PROGNOSIS IN OPERATIVE NONSMALL CELL LUNG CANCER

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the influence of the time interval between surgery and start of postoperative radiotherapy on prognosis in patients with a resetcable NSCLC.
Methods: Between April 1991 and February 1999, 67 patients with pathologically proven non-small cell lung cancer underwent postoperative radiotherapy. There were 45 men and 22 women (median age 65 years). The histology was squamous cell carcinoma in 27 patients, adenocarcinoma in 36, others in 4. The median interval between operation and irradiation was 34 days. The irradiation fields included the surgical margin, mediastinal and ipsilateral hilar lymph nodes. In cases with negative surgical margins, the total dose was 50 Gy in 22 or 25 fractions. A boost irradiation was added to positive surgical margins with a dose of 10-20 Gy.The median follow-up period was 53 months.
Results: For all 67 patients, 5-year overall survival rate was 39.7% and 5-year cause-specific survival rate 46.6%. There were no statistically significant differences in overall survivals, cause-specific survivals, and local recurrence free survivals between the patients with a short interval (≤34 days) and a long interval (≥35 days).
Conclusions: Survival of patients with a short interval between surgery and start of radiotherapy was not significantly different from the patients with a long interval.