Presence of a Ground-Glass Opacity Component Is the True Prognostic Determinant in Clinical Stage I NSCLC

Introduction: Recent studies have suggested that including presence or absence of ground-glass opacity (GGO) may improve the tumor descriptor (T descriptor) classification in clinical stage I NSCLC. In this study, we analyzed prognostic implications of presence or absence of GGO, size of the solid component, and predominant histology to identify the true prognostic determinant for early-stage NSCLC.

Methods: We retrospectively examined 384 patients with clinical stage I NSCLC (solid: 242, part solid: 142) who underwent complete resection between 2009 and 2013.

Results: Survival curves of the whole cohort revealed good separation using the current TNM classification. Nevertheless, the part-solid group had a favorable prognosis irrespective of solid component size. Conversely, patients in the solid tumor group with tumors between 3 and 4 cm had a worse prognosis than patients whose tumors were less than or equal to 3 cm. Thus, we propose the following novel T descriptor classification: IA, part-solid tumors; IB, solid tumors less than or equal to 3 cm; and IC, solid tumors between 3 and 4 cm. This novel classification system stratified patient prognosis better than the current classification. On pathologic evaluation, the part-solid group always had better prognoses than the solid group in each subgroup divided by pathologic grade.

Conclusions: These results suggest that presence of GGO is the true prognostic determinant of stage I NSCLC, irrespective of the size of the solid component. Our novel T descriptor classification system could more accurately predict prognoses of clinical stage I NSCLC cases.