Aim: The first aim is to determine the clinical and pathological characteristics and factors affecting survival in patients with pathological complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant therapy, and the secondary aim is to investigate the effect of adjuvant therapy on survival in these patients.
Methods: Between 2003 and 2015, there was 372 patients who underwent lung resection after neoadjuvant therapy with a diagnosis of locally advanced lung cancer. Sixty-eight patients who had pCRwere retrospectively analyzed. The odds ratios (OR) were calculated in regards of recurrence.
Results: Overall 5-year survival rate was 65.1%. Recurrence was the risk factor affecting survival (78.2% vs 19.3%, p = 0.001) while neoadjuvant treatment type (p = 0.766), the reason of neodjuvant treatment (p = 0.581), and the type of operation (p = 0.860) did not affect survival. Postoperative adjuvant treatment had a positive effect on survival (71.1% versus 62.7%), although this difference was not significant (p = 0.561). Local or distant recurrence was detected in 15 patients (22%). In multivariate analysis, the independent risk factors affecting the recurrence were the time from the end of the neoadjuvant therapy to the surgery being less than eight weeks (OR = 6.49, p = 0.03), the type of neoadjuvant treatment (OR = 0.203, p = 0.03). In patients with a squamous cell carcinoma, there was a decreased trend toward in terms of recurrence (p = 0.06).
Conclusions: pCR after neoadjuvant therapy positively affects survival. Better survival may be detected in patients receiving adjuvant therapy. Due to unexpected the high recurrence rate, patients should be followed in the postoperative period closely.
Keywords: Neoadjuvant treatment; Non-small lung cancer; Pathological complete response; Radiotherapy; Surgery.