Pulmonary cancer is often associated with systemic inflammation and poor nutritional status and these two aspects are strongly correlated and related to the scarce infiltration of a tumor by immune cells. We reviewed all English literature reviews from 2000 to 2024 from PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar, including original articles, review articles, and metanalyses. We excluded non-English language articles and case reports/case series. Generally speaking, nutritional and inflammatory status largely affect medium and long-term prognosis in lung cancer patients. A correct stratification of patients could improve their preoperative general functional nutritional and inflammatory status, minimizing, therefore, possible treatment complications and improving long-term prognosis.

Objective. In recent years, pulmonary segmentectomy has emerged as an alternative to lobectomy for the treatment of patients with clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancer. Considering the conflicting results reported in the literature, the oncological effectiveness of segmentectomy remains controversial. To provide new insight into oncological results, we reviewed the literature, including recent randomized trials. Methods. We performed a systematic review for surgical treatment of stage I NSCLC up to 2 cm using MEDLINE and the Cochrane Database from 1990 to December 2022. Primary outcomes for pooled analysis were overall and disease-free survival; secondary outcomes were postoperative complications and 30-day mortality. Results. Eleven studies were considered for the meta-analysis. The pooled analysis included 3074 and 2278 patients who received lobectomy and segmentectomy, respectively. The estimated pooled hazard ratio showed a similar hazard for segmentectomy compared to lobectomy in terms of overall and disease-free survival. The restricted mean survival time difference between the two procedures was statistically and clinically not significant for overall and disease-free survival. Nevertheless, the overall survival hazard ratio was time-dependent: segmentectomy was at a disadvantage starting from 40 months after surgery. Six papers reported 30-day mortality: there were no events on 1766 procedures. The overall relative risk showed that the postoperative complication rate was higher in segmentectomy compared to lobectomy, without statistical significance. Conclusions. Our results suggest that segmentectomy might be a useful alternative to lobectomy for stage I NSCLC up to 2 cm. However, this appears to be time-dependent; in fact, the risk ratio for overall mortality becomes unfavorable for segmentectomy starting at 40 months after surgery. This last observation, together with some still undefined questions (solid/non-solid ratio, depth of the lesion, modest functional savings, etc.), leave room for further investigations on the real oncological effectiveness of segmentectomy.

Objective: Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare and aggressive malignant cancer for which there are poor treatment options. Extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) and pleurectomy decortication (P/D) are the two most used surgical procedures in patients with resectable disease. We reviewed the available literature in order to compare the overall survival and postoperative complications of EPP and P/D and to provide evidence for the best procedure in the treatment of MPM. Methods: We performed a systematic review of the literature, including studies from August 2018 to May 2022. The primary outcome was 5-year overall survival (OS) and the secondary outcomes were 30-day mortality, 90-day mortality and peri-operative complications. Results: Thirteen studies were considered, including a total of 1624 patients treated with EPP and 2147 treated with P/D. The estimated pooled HR showed a significant lower hazard for P/D compared to EPP in terms of OS (HR = 0.76; 95% CI from 0.62 to 0.94; p < 0.001). In 12 studies, the risk for 30-day mortality was lower for patients treated with P/D (RR = 0.49; 95% CI from 0.31 to 0.76; p = <0.01), whereas only five studies reported 90-day mortality, and no statistically significant difference between EPP and P/D was found (RR = 0.71; 95% CI from 0.47 to 1.07; p = 0.10). The OS restricted mean survival time difference meta-analysis (RMSDT) confirms the superior survival of P/D on the EPP, a superiority that increases from 0.54 months at one year to 4.23 at five years. The incidence of postoperative empyema, atrial fibrillation, bleeding and bronchopleural fistula was significantly increased in the EPP group except for prolonged air leakage, which is only characteristic of P/D. Conclusions: Using two different statistical methods, this meta-analysis suggests that long-term survival after surgical treatment for resectable MPM is greater for patients undergoing P/D. Long-term survival had never been previously analyzed with appropriate tests; on the contrary, our result is consistent with the previous meta-analyses and reinforces the evidence of lower 30-day mortality and the prevalence of postoperative complications in P/D versus EPP patients. The recent introduction of innovative therapeutic schemes, both adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy, keeps the discussion on surgical strategy open and will require new studies.

Introduction: We aimed to assess our 25-year experience in order to evaluate the role of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients who undergo pneumonectomy for pN1 NSCLC. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the outcomes and medical records of patients undergoing pneumonectomy for NSCLC with pathological diagnosis of pN1, excluding all patients who underwent neoadjuvant treatment. We compared patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy with patients who did not undergo neoadjuvant treatment during a follow-up soon after surgery. Gray’s test was used to assess differences in the cumulative incidence of relapse or CSS between the different groups. Kaplan–Meier methods were used for drawing overall survival (OS) plots. In order to assess differences in survival between the groups, the log-rank test was used. The cumulative incidence of relapse, CSS, and OS were calculated at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years of follow-up. Results: The 30-day and 90-day mortality rates of our cohort were 6% and 11,6%. Excluding the first three months after surgery (deaths linked to postoperative comorbidity), after 5 years we found no significant differences between the two cohorts (adjuvant CT and no adjuvant CT) in terms of the overall survival (OS) (p: 0.31), cancer-specific survival (CSS) (p: 0.59), disease-free survival (DFS) (p: 0.94), and relapse rate (p: 0.76). Conclusions: Patients with pN1 NSCLC that was completely resected through pneumonectomy and radical lymphadenectomy may represent a particular cohort, which could be strictly followed up without adjuvant chemotherapy.

Objective: We aimed at assessing our experience at the European Institute of Oncology in order to evaluate the peri- and immediately post-operative impact of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients who underwent pneumonectomy for NSCLC. Materials and methods: We retrospectively reviewed the outcomes and medical records of patients undergoing pneumonectomy (2010–2024). We compared pre-, peri- and post-operative outcomes of patients treated with induction chemotherapy and subsequent pneumonectomy with patients who underwent surgery directly. Differences in their distribution between study arms were assessed using the chi-square test for categorical variables or the Mantel–Haenszel test for trend for ordinal variables. We tested normality of the distribution of continuous variables using the Shapiro–Wilk test. We used logistic regression to quantify the risk of various outcomes (complications, 30-day and 12-day mortality) in patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Risks were expressed as odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs adjusted for age (<60, 60–64, 65–69, ≥70 years), sex and comorbidities (cardiovascular, pulmonary or previous cancer). Results: We observed a higher frequency of post-operative respiratory complications in patients who underwent neoadjuvant therapy and pneumonectomy compared to those who only underwent surgery (11.4% vs. 18.5%; p = 0.05). After adjustment for age, sex and comorbidities we observed a significantly higher rate of pulmonary complications (OR 1.95; 95% CI 1.09–3.47; p = 0.02), ARDS (OR 2.88; 95% CI 1.26–6.59; p = 0.02) and 30-day mortality rate (OR 8.19; 95% CI 1.33–50.3; p = 0.02) in pre-treated patients. Conclusions: It is therefore strongly recommended to study and select potentially eligible patients in an extremely meticulous way before starting the neoadjuvant treatment, and to thoroughly re-evaluate the cardiorespiratory status after inductive therapy, before surgery.