Validity of the updated European Society of Thoracic Surgeons staging guideline in lung cancer patients

Objective The European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) has proposed a revised preoperative lymph node staging guideline for patients with potentially resectable non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We aimed to assess the validity of this revised ESTS guideline and survival results in our patient cohort. Methods A total of 571 patients with potentially resectable NSCLC seen between January 2004 and November 2013 were included in the study. The preoperative mediastinal staging was performed by video-assisted cervical mediastinoscopy or video-assisted mediastinoscopic lymphadenectomy in all patients except those with peripheral cT1N0 nonadenocarcinoma tumors. Resection via thoracotomy or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery was done in patients with no mediastinal lymph node metastasis. Surgical pathological results were compared with the ESTS staging guideline, and the validity of the guideline was tested. Results In this series, mediastinal lymph node metastasis was revealed preoperatively in 266 patients (46.6%). A total of 305 patients underwent anatomic lung resection. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and accuracy of the guidelines were calculated as 95.0%, 100%, 100%, 94.6%, and 97.2%, respectively. Conclusions The ESTS revised preoperative lymph node staging guidelines for patients with NSCLC seem to be effective and valid, and may provide high survival following resectional surgery.