Complex sleeve lobectomy has the same surgical outcome when compared with conventional lobectomy in patients with lung cancer

OBJECTIVES No significant data are available to assess whether complex sleeve lobectomy (complex-SL) can be considered comparable to conventional lobectomy (CL) in terms of surgical outcome. The purpose of this study was to compare surgical and oncological outcomes of complex-SL with CL in patients with lung cancer. METHODS Between 2000 and 2015, a total of 568 patients who underwent open CL (defined as resection of only 1 lobe) and 187 patients who underwent SL were analysed. The SL group was divided into 2 subgroups: standard-SL (bronchial SL, n = 106) and complex-SL (n = 81) (defined as bronchial sleeve resection together with another surgical intervention: bronchovascular SL, n = 40; vascular SL, n = 26; atypical bronchoplasty with resection of more than 1 lobe, n = 12; bronchial SL + chest wall resection, n = 3). RESULTS The complex-SL group had more patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (25.9% vs 12.5%, P = 0.001), neoadjuvant treatment (39.5% vs 12.0%, P CONCLUSIONS Complex-SL had a comparable outcome to CL, although the complex-SL group had more patients with advanced-stage NSCLC, low preoperative forced expiratory volume in 1 s and COPD.