Trimodal therapy and surgical approaches in stage IIIA/N2 non-small cell lung cancer

Abstract The standard treatment guideline for stage IIIA/N2 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains controversial despite years of research, and the necessity of surgery is still debated. This study aims to explore optimal treatment and surgical methods for stage IIIA/N2 NSCLC patients. We obtained data from the Taiwan Cancer Registry (TCR) to compare the overall survival rates of different subgroups of stage IIIA/N2 NSCLC patients, as well as the overall survival rates of different treatment strategies and surgical methods. Our study included 2,237 stage IIIA/N2 NSCLC patients. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy led to significantly higher survival rates. For T1N2 patients, surgery alone showed better survival (P