The Short-Term Impact of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy on the Outcome of Patients Undergoing Pneumonectomy for Lung Cancer: Is It Acceptable Nowadays?

We aimed at assessing our experience at the European Institute of Oncology in order to evaluate the peri- and immediately post-operative impact of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients who underwent pneumonectomy for NSCLC. We retrospectively reviewed the outcomes and medical records of patients undergoing pneumonectomy (2010-2024). We compared pre-, peri- and post-operative outcomes of patients treated with induction chemotherapy and subsequent pneumonectomy with patients who underwent surgery directly. Differences in their distribution between study arms were assessed using the chi-square test for categorical variables or the Mantel-Haenszel test for trend for ordinal variables. We tested normality of the distribution of continuous variables using the Shapiro-Wilk test. We used logistic regression to quantify the risk of various outcomes (complications, 30-day and 12-day mortality) in patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Risks were expressed as odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs adjusted for age (<60, 60-64, 65-69, ≥70 years), sex and comorbidities (cardiovascular, pulmonary or previous cancer). We observed a higher frequency of post-operative respiratory complications in patients who underwent neoadjuvant therapy and pneumonectomy compared to those who only underwent surgery (11.4% vs. 18.5%; = 0.05). After adjustment for age, sex and comorbidities we observed a significantly higher rate of pulmonary complications (OR 1.95; 95% CI 1.09-3.47; = 0.02), ARDS (OR 2.88; 95% CI 1.26-6.59; = 0.02) and 30-day mortality rate (OR 8.19; 95% CI 1.33-50.3; = 0.02) in pre-treated patients. It is therefore strongly recommended to study and select potentially eligible patients in an extremely meticulous way before starting the neoadjuvant treatment, and to thoroughly re-evaluate the cardiorespiratory status after inductive therapy, before surgery.