An analysis of long-term survival after pneumonectomy for lung cancer: A retrospective study of 20 years

Introduction: The incidence of pneumonectomy for lung cancer in the UK is continuing to decline in the era of minimally invasive thoracic surgery totalling approximately 3.5% of lung cancer resections annually. Literature is lacking for long-term survival of pneumonectomies. This study updates our previous results. Between 1998 and 2008, 206 patients underwent pneumonectomy compared to 98 patients between 2009 and 2018. Methods: From January 1998 until December 2018, 304 patients underwent pneumonectomy. This was a retrospective study; data was analysed for age, gender, laterality, histology and time period. Results: Operative mortality was 4.3% overall which was lower than the national average of 5.8%. In the last five years, there were no in-hospital, operative or 30-day mortality. During this period, 90-day mortality was 9.2%. Left-sided pneumonectomies had significantly better overall survival (3.00 vs. 2.03 years; p= 0.0015), squamous cell carcinoma (3.23 vs. 1.54 years; p= 0.00012) as well as those aged less than 70 (2.79 vs. 2.13 years; p= 0.011). There was no significant difference in survival between gender (p= 0.48). Intervention from 1998 to 2008 had significantly greater survival compared to the latter 10 years (2.68 vs. 2.46 years; p= 0.031). The Cox model shows that laterality, age, histology and time period remain significant with multivariate testing. No patient survived after 16 years. Discussion: Our updated retrospective study has built on our previous results by reinforcing the success of pneumonectomies. The incidence of pneumonectomies is likely to decrease with the deployment of nation-wide lung cancer screening in the UK due to earlier detection.