Impact of surgery for stage IA non-small-cell lung cancer on patient quality of life.

BACKGROUND: There is a paucity of literature comparing quality of life (QoL) before and after surgery in stage IA lung cancer, where surgical resection is the recommended curative treatment. OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of surgery on physical and mental health-related QoL in patients with stage IA lung cancer treated with surgical resection. METHODS: Participants in the I-ELCAP cohort who were diagnosed with their first primary pathologic stage IA non-small-cell lung cancer, underwent surgery, and provided follow-up information on QoL 1 year later were included in the present analysis (N = 107). QoL information was collected using the SF-12 (12-item Short Form Health Survey), which generates 2 component scores related to mental health and physical health. RESULTS: Statistical analyses indicated that physical health QoL was significantly worsened from before surgery to after surgery, whereas mental health QoL marginally improved from before to after surgery. Physical health QoL worsened for women from baseline to follow-up, but not for men. Only lobectomy (not limited resection) had an impact on QoL from before to after surgery. LIMITATIONS: Results are considered preliminary given the small sample size and multiple comparisons. CONCLUSIONS: The current study findings have implications for lung cancer health care professionals in regard to how they can most effectively present the possible impact of surgery on quality of life to this subset of patients in which disease has not yet significantly progressed.