Prognostic value of visceral pleura invasion in non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract

We were able to demonstrate that visceral pleura invasion was a factor of poor prognosis in T2 NSCLC. It was found to correlate with more extensive mediastinal lymph node involvement and a decreased survival rates. Therefore, the patients with visceral pleura invasion should be closely followed up especially.

Prognostic factors in pathological stage IB nonsmall cell lung cancer greater than 3 cm

“…SHIMIZU et al [23] also demonstrated that tumours with a diameter .3 cm had higher frequency of VPI. However, no correlation between tumour size and VPI was found in the report by KANG et al [20]. Our results showed that there was no association between VPI and tumour size in stage IB NSCLC with a diameter .3 cm.…”

“…JONES et al [4] reported that the frequency of VPI in patients with stage IB NSCLC was 36.4%, while KANG et al [20] reported only 23%. In our study, the frequency of VPI in stage IB NSCLC with a diameter .3 cm was 25.6% (121 out of 472 patients).…”

“…VPI was shown to correlate with a higher frequency of mediastinal lymph node involvement, and thus a poor survival [19,20,23]. : data are lacking in some patients for these variables.…”

“…There are only a few reports regarding this issue, and the results were inconsistent [22,24]. Some studies have demonstrated VPI to be a poor prognostic factor in stage I or stage IB NSCLC [18][19][20]23]. OU et al [14] reported that presence of VPI, hilar atelectasis or obstructive pneumonitis in T2 tumours .3 cm is an independent poor prognostic factor for survival.…”

“…They also recommend that elastic stains be used in cases when the distinction between PL0 and PL1 is not clear based on evaluation of haematoxylin and eosin sections [17]. Although VPI has generally been reported to be a poor prognostic factor [18][19][20][21][22][23], some studies have demonstrated that VPI was not a prognostic factor for survival [4,6,7,13,24,25]. The prognostic value of VPI in patients of early stage NSCLC with larger tumour size has remained to be demonstrated.…”