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Review
. 2022 Oct;11(10):3869-3875.
doi: 10.21037/tcr-22-1491.

State of the art and new perspectives in surgical treatment of lung cancer: a narrative review

Francesco Petrella  1   2 , Stefania Rizzo  3   4 , Monica Casiraghi  1   2 , Claudia Bardoni  1 , Shehab Mohamed  1 , Valeria Musso  1 , Emanuele Simonini  1 , Lorenzo Spaggiari  1   2
Affiliations
Review

State of the art and new perspectives in surgical treatment of lung cancer: a narrative review

Francesco Petrella et al. Transl Cancer Res. 2022 Oct.

Abstract

Background and objective: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and its incidence has increased over the past two decades. The standard care for stage I, stage II, and selected cases of stage IIIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is surgical resection; in some cases, patients may be offered adjuvant systemic therapy after surgical resection. Patients with lung cancer presenting with distant metastases belong to stage IV: in this setting, some carefully selected patients may benefit from surgery within a multimodality approach.

Methods: We performed a comprehensive, non-systematic review of the latest literature to define the present role of surgery in lung cancer treatment.

Key content and findings: The literature review disclosed a pivotal role of surgery in early stage lung cancer and a complimentary role in locally advanced lung cancer; in very selected cases, surgery might be considered in oligometastatic disease.

Conclusions: Surgical treatment of lung cancer still plays a pivotal role in early stages of the disease while, in locally advanced stages, it may contribute to improve overall survival in combination with medical treatments and radiotherapy. More recently, an effective role of surgery has been advocated in carefully selected oligometastatic patients with encouraging initial results.

Keywords: Lung cancer; early stage; locally advanced; metastatic stage; surgery.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://tcr.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/tcr-22-1491/coif). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Comment in

  • Lung cancer surgery at present and tendency.
    Honguero-Martínez AF. Honguero-Martínez AF. Transl Cancer Res. 2022 Dec;11(12):4220-4222. doi: 10.21037/tcr-22-2342. Transl Cancer Res. 2022. PMID: 36644170 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

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