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(HealthDay News) – Hospitals in England with higher rates of surgical resection of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have better survival, especially in the early postoperative period, according to a study published online July 29 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Margreet Lüchtenborg, PhD, from the King’s College London School of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed data from 134,293 patients with NSCLC diagnosed in England between 2004–2008 to assess the correlation between hospital volume and survival. Of the cohort, 9.6% underwent surgical resection. The number of patients with resected lung cancer in each hospital in each year of diagnosis was used to define hospital volume.
The researchers found that there was significantly increased survival in hospitals performing more than 150 surgical resections compared with those performing <70 (hazard ratio, 0.78). During three predefined follow-up periods, the association between hospital volume and survival was maintained, but the magnitude of association was greatest in the early postoperative period.
“In conclusion, our results indicate that hospitals in England with high volumes of surgical resection of lung cancer perform surgery among patients who are older, are more socioeconomically deprived, and have more comorbidity,” the authors write. “Despite this, they achieve better survival, especially in the early postoperative period.”
One author disclosed financial ties to Covidien.
