Mortality Related to Neoadjuvant Therapy and Surgery for Stage III Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy alone or with concurrent radiation is often used for stage IIIA non-small-cell lung cancer but is often tried in patients with stage IIIB and at times in patients with stage I or II disease. Newer neoadjuvant regimens would need to be compared with currently used programs to see if they increased toxicity. For such a comparison, a baseline estimate is needed of the mortality of currently used regimens. In this review, we searched PubMed and associated references, and data on mortality were identified in 34 publications. The mortality of neoadjuvant chemotherapy or chemotherapy plus radiation has been estimated in 2015 patients was 0.7%, and the postsurgical mortality in 2195 patients was 4.3%. These estimates might provide a benchmark for comparison for innovative trials.