Chemotherapy combined with intermittent microwave ablation in the treatment of oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To observe the role of chemotherapy combined with microwave ablation in the treatment of oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). METHODS: 68 oligometastatic NSCLC patients were enrolled in this comparative study and randomly received chemotherapy with intermittent CT guided microwave ablation or chemotherapy only. The efficacy and the adverse effects were evaluated at 1, 3, and 6 months after treatment. RESULTS: Patients in the experimental group received microwave ablation after chemotherapy (n=s34), complete remission (CR) was found in 8 cases (23.53%), partial remission (PR) in 16 cases (47.06%), and the total effective rate (CR+PR) was 70.59%. Microwave ablation with concurrent chemotherapy was performed in patients of the control group (n=33) and there were 0 patients of CR (0%), 12 patients of PR (36.36%), and the total effective rate (CR+PR) was 36.36% (χ2=7.890, p<0.01). The score of Karnofski performance status (KPS) in the experimental group was significantly higher (p<0.05). The median progression-free survival (PFS) in the control group and the experimental group was 3.6±0.2 months and 5.4±0.1 months (χ2=42.731, p<0.01). The incidence of pneumothorax and bloody sputum in the experimental group was higher than that in the control group (χ2=6.031, p<0.05). However, no evident differences were found regarding other common complications of microwave ablation and chemotherapy. CONCLUSION: Chemotherapy combined with intermittent microwave ablation is superior to chemotherapy alone in improving the disease control rate and the quality of life of patients, as well as prolonging the PFS of patients.