The prognostic impact of tumor volume on stage I non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the prognostic impact of tumor volume (TV) on patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after complete resection. Materials and Methods We retrospectively reviewed the clinicopathological characteristics of 274 patients with stage I NSCLC who had received preoperative chest computed tomography (CT) scans and complete resection. TV was semi-automatically measured from chest CT scans by using an imaging software program. The optimal cutoff values of TV were determined by X-tile software. Disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were compared using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify risk factors for DFS and OS. Results By using 3.046cm 3 and 8.078cm 3 as two optimal cutoff values of TV, the patients were separated into three groups. The 5-year DFS and OS for patients with TV≤3.046cm 3 , 3.046–8.078cm 3 , and>8.078cm 3 were 88.0%, 73.6%, and 62.1%, respectively ( P Conclusion TV is an independent risk factor for DFS and OS for stage I NSCLC after complete resection. TV might provide additional prognostic information over tumor diameter in patients with stage I NSCLC.