Preoperative evaluation of the depth of chest wall invasion and the extent of combined resections in lung cancer patients

The optimal extent of a combined resection in patients with lung cancer invading the chest wall remains controversial. To assess whether specific preoperative findings could lead to the precise evaluation of the depth of chest wall invasion and evade en-bloc resection of the chest wall in cases of tumor invasion limited to the parietal pleura, 132 patients with resected lung cancer involving the chest wall were retrospectively surveyed for the preoperative findings, surgical procedures, pathological results, and survival. A pathological examination of the resected specimens showed that 58 tumors had invaded only to the parietal pleura (shallow invasion) and 74 had involved the soft tissue or ribs (deep invasion). A multivariate analysis showed that preoperative CT findings of obvious tumor invasion beyond the parietal pleura (p = 0.005) and complaints of chest pain (p = 0.015) were independent indicators of deep invasion. In patients with lung cancer involving the chest wall, chest pain and/or invading on chest CT suggested that an en-bloc resection was a suitable surgical procedure, because 79% of those patients had deep invasion. On the other hand, in patients without chest pain and invasion on chest CT, an extrapleural approach was recommended at first based on the fact that 63% of them had shallow invasion. In practice, an extrapleural resection was performed in 40 cases and an en-bloc resection in 10 patients with shallow invasion. There was no significant difference in the survival between the two surgical procedures. Therefore, the CT findings of obvious tumor invasion beyond the parietal pleura and/or the presence of chest pain indicate the need to perform an en-bloc resection in patients with lung cancer involving the chest wall. However, in patients without these findings, an extrapleural approach could be initially attempted for chest wall resection, because an en-bloc resection had no survival benefit for patients with shallow invasion.