Important progress in surgical treatment of lung cancer in 2023

Abstract

Lung cancer is the malignant tumor with the highest incidence and mortality rate in China, and surgical resection is a crucial approach for its treatment. In 2023, significant advancements were made in the field of lung cancer surgery. Firstly, CALGB140503 showed that for peripheral ≤2 cm nodular lung cancer, sublobar resection demonstrated no significant difference in survival rates compared to lobectomy, establishing the foundation for its role in early lung cancer treatment. Secondly, JCOG1211 found that segmentectomy could be used to treat 2-3 cm ground-glass opacity-predominant adenocarcinoma, however, patient in this study may undergo overtreatment, which could potentially be mitigated through intraoperative rapid frozen section pathological examination. Furthermore, the ECTOP-1003 study proposed a selective lymph node dissection strategy based on tumor location and intraoperative rapid frozen section pathological examination, achieving a 100% accuracy rate and providing a more precise approach to lymph node dissection. Additionally, the exploration of the cure time window for lung adenocarcinoma was remarkable, emphasizing the importance of timing in surgical intervention to avoid overtreatment in early lung cancer treatment. Finally, the ECTOP-1008 study demonstrated that high-resolution chest computed tomography (CT) scans assisted in determining the pathological invasion degree of lung cancer, aiding in the precise judgment of curative time window. This review summarized the important research progress in the field of lung cancer surgery in 2023, aiming to provide insights for clinical practice and future trials in lung cancer surgery.

Keywords

• |lung cancer|research progress|sublobar resection|cure time window