The impact on mediastinal recurrence based on the number of harvested mediastinal lymph nodes and assessed N2 Stations in patients with stage I invasive lung adenocarcinoma

Background: To determine the impact of the number of harvested mediastinal lymph nodes (MLNs) and assessed N2 stations on the mediastinal recurrence for pathologic stage I invasive lung adenocarcinoma (IADC). Methods: A total of 2,048 patients with stage I IADC undergoing surgical resection were enrolled at Shanghai Chest Hospital from 2009 to 2013. Survival analysis was performed by Kaplan-Meier method along with univariable and multivariable cox regression analysis. Results: For patients with ≥5 MLNs, mediastinum-specific relapse-free survival (MS-RFS) rates were 98.3% and 96.6% for 3- and 5-year, respectively, which significantly demonstrated better survival outcomes against those with Conclusions: Based on our results, we recommend, for a better MS-RFS among patients with pathological stage I IADC, that the cutoff values for harvested MLNs and assessed N2 stations be 5 and 3, respectively. In addition, the number of assessed N2 stations was still an independent predictor to MS-RFS.