Background. The prognosis of patients with clinically staged hilar nodal involvement (Stage N1) or clinical Stage I1 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC, Stage T1-2NlMO) treated with radiation therapy (RT) alone is not well established.
Methods. Records of 758 patients with clinical Stage 1-111 NSCLC treated with RT were reviewed. Sixtytwo patients were identified with clinical Stage 11 NSCLC, and 126 patients had Stage N1 disease. Results. The median survival time (MST) of the 62 patients with clinical Stage I1 disease was 17.9 months, with 1-year, 2-year, %year, and 5-year overall actuarial survival rates of Yo%, 33%, ZO%, and 12%, respectively. The survival of patients with clinical Stage I1 disease was significantly better than that of 389 patients with clinical Stage IIIA disease (MST, 11.3 months; P < 0.008) and 267 patients with clinical Stage IIIB disease (MST, 9.8 months: P = 0.0003), but it was similar to that of 40 patients with clinical Stage I lesions (MST, 15.0 months).
Patients with performance statuses of 0-1 lived longer than those with a status of 2 or more (MST, 22.8 versus 6.1 months; P < 0.0001). The median survival for patients with NO, N1, N2, and N3 disease was 13.7,12.6,10.9, and 9.1 months, respectively. Patients with Stage NO-1 disease (MST, 13.2 months) had significantly improved MST compared with those with Stage N2-3 disease (MST, 10.3 months).
The survival of patients with clinical Stage I1 NSCLC treated with RT alone was significantly better than that of those with clinical Stage IIIA or IIIB disease. It was comparable to that of patients with clini-From the