SURVIVAL ANALYSIS OF UNTREATED PATIENTS WITH NON-SMALL-CELL LUNG-CANCER

The survival rate analysis of 130 patients with nonsmall-cell lung can cer who did not receive any specific anticancer therapy showed no stat istically significant differences in the survival rates between variou s TNM combinations classified into stage groups II, IIIa, IIIb, and IV , as proposed by Mountain in 1989 and adopted by the American Joint Co mmittee on Cancer. Following these findings, based on survival probabi lities, two distinctive staging groups could be distinguished. The fir st stage group was composed of only the T1, 2NO, MO combination, and t he second of all other TNM combinations. In a purely biologic sense of tumor growth, the lymph node involvement appeared to be the crucial f actor determining the length of survival.