Background: Reports on the prognosis for 5-year survivors with lung adenocarcinoma after resection are sparse. This study aimed to identify factors associated with overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) for 5-year survivors with completely resected lung adenocarcinoma, and to determine whether preoperative imaging factors, including the presence of ground-glass opacity (GGO) components, affect late recurrence in long-term survivors.
Methods: Complete resection of lung adenocarcinoma was performed for 1681 patients between January 2000 and December 2013. Of these patients, 936 who survived 5 years or longer after surgery were identified, and factors associated with OS and CSS were determined using the Cox proportional hazard model.
Results: Multivariable analysis demonstrated that lymph node metastasis (p < 0.01) and absence of GGO components (p < 0.01) were independently associated with OS and CSS for the 5-year survivors. The absence of GGO components was significantly associated with OS (p < 0.01) and CSS (p < 0.01) also for the 5-year survivors with stage 1 disease (n = 782) and for the 5-year survivors without recurrence (n = 809). The incidence of recurrence anytime during the 10-year postoperative follow-up period differed significantly between the 5-year survivors with and without GGO components.
Conclusions: The absence of GGO components was significantly associated with an unfavorable prognosis for the 5-year survivors with completely resected lung adenocarcinoma regardless whether they had recurrences not.