Central tumour location should be considered when comparing N1 upstaging between thoracoscopic and open surgery for clinical stage I non-small-cell lung cancer

Abstract

The number of lymph node stations examined during VATS resections is similar to open resections for cStage-I NSCLC. Almost one-third of the patients with a central cStage-I NSCLC were upstaged to pN1. Tumour location was the only independent variable for pN1 upstaging in logistic regression analysis. It is a potential bias in retrospective studies and should therefore be accounted for when comparing different surgical resection techniques for cStage-I NSCLC.