Segmentectomy versus Lobectomy for Patients with 2-3cm Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Camille A Mathey-Andrews; Alexandra L Potter; Deepti Srinivasan; Priyanka Senthil; Hiba Elkhatib; Danny Wang; Arvind Kumar; Michael Lanuti; Lana Schumacher; Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang

doi:10.1016/j.chest.2025.05.047

Segmentectomy versus Lobectomy for Patients with 2-3cm Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Chest. 2025 Jun 29:S0012-3692(25)00812-8. doi: 10.1016/j.chest.2025.05.047. Online ahead of print.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Thoracic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
² Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Department of Thoracic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: cjyang@mgh.harvard.edu.

PMID: 40592414
DOI: 10.1016/j.chest.2025.05.047

Abstract

Background: JCOG0802 and CALGB 140503 recently demonstrated the noninferiority of sublobar resection to lobectomy in patients with T1a-bN0M0 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). It remains unknown, however, whether segmentectomy is associated with similar oncologic outcomes to lobectomy for patients with node negative T1c tumors (i.e., those 2-3 cm in size).

Research question: The objective of this study was to evaluate the survival of patients undergoing segmentectomy vs. lobectomy for T1cN0M0 NSCLC.

Study design and methods: Patients in the National Cancer Database (2010-2020) who underwent segmentectomy or lobectomy for clinical T1cN0M0 NSCLC were identified for analysis. Only patients with no comorbidities were included in an effort to minimize selection bias. Overall survival of patients undergoing segmentectomy vs. lobectomy was evaluated using multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards modeling and propensity-score matched analysis. These analyses were then repeated among a subset of patients with pathologic T1cN0M0 NSCLC.

Results: Of the 12,814 patients with cT1cN0M0 NSCLC identified, 526 (4.1%) underwent segmentectomy and 12,288 (95.9%) underwent lobectomy. Among patients with clinical T1c disease, there was no difference in overall survival among patients undergoing segmentectomy versus lobectomy in multivariable-adjusted (aHR 1.13, 95% CI [0.92-1.39], p = 0.23) or propensity-score matched analysis (5-year survival: 70.1% [95% CI: 63.8%-75.6%] vs 72.0% [95% CI: 65.6%-77.3%], p=0.85). Similarly, among a subset of 8,502 patients with pathologic T1cN0M0 NSCLC, there was no difference in overall survival between patients undergoing segmentectomy or lobectomy in multivariable-adjusted (aHR 1.23, 95% CI [0.96-1.59], p = 0.11) or propensity-score matched analysis (5-year survival: 74.1% [95% CI: 66.7-80.2] vs 74.0% [95% CI: 66.4-80.2], p=0.73).

Interpretation: In this national analysis, segmentectomy was noninferior to lobectomy for patients with clinical or pathologic T1c NSCLC. These findings suggest that future prospective studies comparing lobectomy and sublobar resection should consider including patients with larger tumors up to 3 cm as these patients may also benefit from parenchymal-sparing approaches.

Keywords: lung cancer surgery; non-small-cell lung cancer; parenchymal sparing; sublobar resection.