Number of Lymph Nodes Associated With Maximal Reduction of Long-Term Mortality Risk in Pathologic Node-Negative Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

The authors hypothesized that examination of more lymph nodes resulting from lung resection for NSCLC would result in fewer missed nodal metastases and be associated with better survival related to more accurate staging. Based on nearly 25,000 pts from SEER, they found the median number of nodes examined was only 6. Pts who had 18-21 nodes examined had a hazard ratio for mortality of 0.65.