For otherwise healthy patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), conventional surgery may cause fewer complications

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to new findings presented at the American Society of Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO) 56th annual meeting in San Francisco, California, patients who undergo traditional surgery rather than stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for the treatment of early stage non-small cell lung cancer fare better in the long-term.

In the study, researchers from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, identified 1,078 patients age 67 and older with NSCLC from Medicare billing records in order to analyze short-term and long-term complications and outcomes associated with traditional surgery compared with radiosurgery.

The study found that while conventional surgery was associated with a greater amount of infections, complications, and death compared with radiosurgery during the first three months after surgery, patients who underwent conventional surgery had fewer complications than those who underwent radiosurgery after 12 months.

The study demonstrated that otherwise healthy patients with early stage NSCLC would fare better if they underwent conventional surgery rather than radiosurgery, but James B. Yu, MD, of the Yale School of Medicine and lead researcher of the study was surprised to see how much fewer long-term complications there were with conventional surgery versus radiosurgery.