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Background: We investigated the effect of unexpected N2 on survival in stage IIIB/N2 cases., Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 1803 non-small cell lung cancer patients between 2010 and 2016. There were 89 patients (4.9%) with unexpected N2 (pathological (p) IIIB/N2 group), whereas 49 patients (2.7%) with cN2 (clinical (c) IIIB/N2 group). Although pIIIB/N2 group underwent surgery followed by adjuvant therapy, the cIIIB/N2 group of patients had multimodality treatment including induction chemotherapy ± radiotherapy followed by surgery., Results: The five-year overall survival (OS) for all patients was 36.0% [median survival time (MST) 27.9 months], and disease-free survival (DFS) was 28.9% (MST, 18.2 months). The OS was 39.6% (MST: 34.4 months) and the median DFS time was 31.1% (Median: 23.1 months) in the pIIIB/N2 group, whereas it was 29.2% (MST: 23.0 months) for OS and 22% (median: 12.4 months) for DFS in the cIIIB/N2 group. There were no significant OS and DFS differences between the pIIIB/N2 group and the cIIIB/N2 group ( p  = 0.124 and p  = 0.168, respectively)., Conclusions: In stage IIIB/N2 cases, the fact that N2 could not be detected preoperatively with minimally invasive or invasive methods and was detected in the pathological examination after surgery does not provide a survival advantage.

Background: We investigated whether all size-based pathological T4N0-N1 non-small cell lung cancer patients with tumors at any size >7 cm had the same outcomes., Methods: We reviewed non-small cell lung cancer patients with tumors >7 cm who underwent anatomical lung resection between 2010 and 2016. A total of 251 size-based T4N0-N1 patients were divided into two groups based on tumor size. Group S ( n  = 192) included patients with tumors of 7.1-9.9 cm and Group L ( n  = 59) as tumor size ≥10 cm., Results: The mean tumor size was 8.83 ± 1.7 cm (Group S: 8.06 ± 0.6 cm, Group L: 11.3 ± 1.6 cm). There were 146 patients with pathological N0 and 105 patients with pathological N1 disease. Mean overall survival and disease-free survival were 64.2 and 51.4 months, respectively. The five-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 51.2% and 43.5% (five-year OS; pT4N0:52.7%, pT4N1:47.9%, DFS; pT4N0:44.3%, pT4N1: 42.3%). No significant differences were observed between T4N0 and T4N1 patients in terms of five-year OS or DFS ( p  = 0.325, p  = 0.505 respectively). The five-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 52% and 44.6% in Group S, and 48.5% and 38.9% in Group L. No significant difference was observed between the groups in terms of five-year overall survival or disease-free survival ( p  = 0.699, p  = 0.608, respectively)., Conclusions: Above 7 cm, any further increase in tumor size in non-small cell lung cancer patients had no significant effect on survival, confirming it is not necessary to further discriminate among patients with tumors in that size class.