Effect of lobectomy on survival in early-stage small cell lung cancer: A retrospective analysis

7585 Background: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) rarely presents as I/II Disease. In order to assess the incidence, treatment and prognosis of this early-stage SCLC, we used the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database. Furthermore, since some investigators are irradiating growing and/or PET Scan positive nodules without biopsy, presenting characteristics of surgically-resected Stage I SCLC were compared to those of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: The SEER 17 Database from 1988–2003 was accessed for all patients with early-stage SCLC. Presenting characteristics of surgically-resected Stage I SCLC were compared to those of resected Stage I NSCLC using chi-square and Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests. The logrank test was used to compare the differences in Survival(S) resulting from the various treatments options for early-stage SCLC. Results: 1,615 patients were identified with early-stage SCLC with greater than 3 months of follow-up. The median S was 20 months for the entire group. Over the time period of our study, the incidence of early stage SCLC as a percentage of all SCLCs and all lung cancers (SCLCs and NSCLCs) remained stable and ranged from 3.00–4.96% and 0.09–0.16% respectively. Surgically-resected Stage I SCLC did not differ from NSCLC in regards to patient characteristics (age, sex, race) or tumor location, but SCLC was found to have significantly smaller tumor size (p< 0.0001). Lobectomy or greater resections without radiotherapy were associated with a greater median S than those treated with segmental/wedge resections and those treated with radiotherapy alone (44 vs 29 months, p=0.03 and 20 months, p No significant financial relationships to disclose.