Treatment of stage I and II non-small-cell lung cancer

Abstract

Background: The appropriate staging and treatment of patients with stage I and II non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are important in that the potential for a lost curative opportunity in this population is greater than for those presenting with advanced NSCLC.

Methods: Treatment options -- surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy -- for stage I and II NSCLC are reviewed, and the impact of newer staging modalities on patient survival is discussed, including altering both the lead-time and clinicopathologic stage biases that exist in the diagnosis and treatment of NSCLC. Some predictions are also made regarding how that standard may change for clinicians in the near future, and methods for further improvements in posttreatment survival in this group are discussed.

Results: Whenever possible, patients with early-stage NSCLC should be treated with surgical resection. Patients for whom resection is not an option may benefit from radiation as definitive therapy. Positive results with neoadjuvant chemotherapy have led to an ongoing randomized trial (Intergroup S9900) to compare surgery alone to neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus surgery.

Conclusions: Staging bias may affect the overall low survival of early-stage NSCLC. However, true stage-specific survival may improve with newer imaging modalities. Future advances, including closed transthoracic radiation, thermal ablative therapy techniques, and gene therapy, may supplant the need to surgically resect these tumors to achieve local control.