Background: The Japan Lung Cancer Society, the Japanese Association for Chest Surgery, and the Japanese Respiratory Society jointly established the Japanese Joint Committee for Lung Cancer Registration, which has regularly conducted lung cancer registries for surgical cases in 5-year periods. We analyzed data obtained in these registries to reveal the most recent surgical outcomes and trends related to lung cancer surgery in Japan.
Methods: Using data from the registry in 2010 for cases of surgery performed in 2004, demographics, surgical results, and stage-specific prognoses were analyzed. In addition, trends for those parameters over 10 years were assessed.
Results: The 5-year survival rate for all cases (n = 11,663, 7369 males, mean age 66.7 years) was 69.6%. The 5-year survival rates by c-stage and p-stage were as follow: IA, 82.0% (n = 6295) and 86.8% (n = 4978); IB, 66.8% (n = 2339) and 73.9% (n = 2552); IIA, 54.5% (n = 819) and 61.6% (n = 941); IIB, 46.4% (n = 648) and 49.8% (n = 848); IIIA, 42.8% (n = 1216) and 40.9% (n = 1804); IIIB, 40.3% (n = 90) and 27.8% (n = 106); and IV, 31.4% (n = 256) and 27.9% (n = 434), respectively. The percentages of female patients, cases with adenocarcinoma, stage I or II disease, and tumors sized less than 2 cm were increased, while those of operative and hospital deaths were decreased. Furthermore, the prognoses of all cases and cases in each stage improved over the decade.
Conclusion: In Japanese cases of lung cancer surgery, demographics, surgical results, and stage-specific prognoses changed over the 10-year study period, while the 5-year survival rate for surgical cases improved to 69.6% in 2004.