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Survival with Stage III Lung Cancer In general the 5 year survival with Stage IIIA is 10 - 30% and Stage IIIB < 5%.(J Clin Onc 1995:1096.) In series of stage IIIA treated with surgery the 5 y survival range is 19 - 29%. The numbers can be subdivided further as noted from Nuarke JTCSurg 1988;96:440 |
| Stage | TNM | Survival/5y |
| IIIA | T3N0 | 33% |
| IIIA | T3N1 | 39% |
| IIIA | T1-3N2 | 15% |
| IIIB | T1-3N3 | 0% |
| IIIB | T4N1-3 | 8% |
Patients who have resected mediastinal node metastases have a much worse survival if the mets are obvious at mediastinoscopy (15% 5 year survival) than those whose mediastinoscopy was negative and the nodes were found to be positive incidently by the pathologist (41% 5 year survival,) (Pearson J TCVS 1982;83:1) Also those whose mediastinal nodes are completely resected do better than all N2 (19-30% survival vs 14-18%.) Also patients with squamous cell cancer have better survival for both N1 (52% vs 31% 5y survival) and for N2 (37% vs 26%.) than for those with adenocarcinoma. |