EComment. Does adrenalectomy in lung cancer improve survival?

Abstract

We have read with great interest the review from Sastry et al. [1]. Surgery is the main treatment protocol for non-metastatic lung cancer. Distant metastasis is suggested as stage 4 disease and surgery is not performed for these tumours. Surgery for solitary brain metastasis has been shown to prolong survival [2]. However, adrenalectomy in non-small-cell lung cancer is controversial. Several studies have been performed [3, 4] investigating the effect of adrenalectomy in non-small cell lung cancer. As a general rule of lung cancer treatment, we do not perform surgery for lung cancer patients who have distant metastasis. But we think that patients having only adrenal metastasis with a T1-2 tumour can be considered separately from this distant metastasis group and should be discussed within a multidisciplinary approach for adrenalectomy to improve survival. We report here our institutional results of adrenalectomy in non-small-cell lung cancer patients.