Clinical and prognostic assessment of patients with resected small peripheral lung cancer lesions.

One hundred fifteen patients with small (less than or equal to 2 cm in diameter) peripheral lung cancer lesions underwent surgical treatment in the Department of Surgery, The Research Institute for Chest Diseases and Cancer, Tohoku University, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The authors investigated several prognostic factors of these cases. The 5-year survival rate of these 115 patients was 70%. Various factors such as histologic type, nodal involvement, pleural involvement, pathologic stage, and curativity of the operation were revealed to affect survival significantly. In patients with and without nodal involvement, there was no significant difference between the survival rate of patients with lung cancer lesions smaller than 2 cm and those with lesions 2.1 to 3 cm. However, the rate of lymph node metastasis was significantly different in the group with lesions smaller than 2 cm compared with those with lesions 2.1 to 3 cm (21% versus 43%, respectively).