Comparison of treatment strategies for resectable locally advanced primary mucinous adenocarcinoma of the lung

BACKGROUND: Primary pure mucinous adenocarcinoma (PMA) is a rare type of lung cancer with unique clinical and prognostic features. Previous studies have shown that PMA have more early‐stage cancer compared with other adenocarcinoma (ADC) subtypes. The clinicopathological features and optimal treatment strategies of resectable locally advanced mucinous adenocarcinoma lack evidence and require further study. METHODS: In this study, we collected information from patients with stage III‐N2 PMA who underwent radical surgery between 2004 and 2016 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. The clinicopathological parameters, treatments, overall survival (OS), and cancer‐specific survival (CSS) were evaluated. RESULTS: Of 242,699 eligible lung adenocarcinoma patients, 124 with PMA and 3405 with other ADCs of stage III‐N2 received radical surgery were identified. Compared with other ADCs, PMA tended to appear more in the lower lobes, with higher degree of differentiation, less early T stage, and more positive lymph nodes numbers. Patients with PMA had significantly worse survival than other ADCs (OS = 45.0 vs. 57.1 months, p = 0.005, CSS = 51.8 vs. 65.5 months, p = 0.017). We explored the benefit population of postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) and found that the population with ≤7 positive lymph nodes could benefit from PORT, and OS was significantly improved (41.2 vs. 69.3 months, p = 0.034). For patients with >7 positive lymph nodes, PORT did not provide a survival benefit, while chemotherapy improved OS (10.9 vs. 23.3 months, p = 0.041). Multivariate analysis showed that race, tumor location, number of positive lymph nodes, and PORT were independent prognostic factors in patients with postoperative III‐N2 lung PMA. CONCLUSION: The prognosis of patients with resectable III‐N2 primary lung PMA was significantly worse than that of other ADCs, and PORT was an independent prognostic factor. Patients with ≤7 positive lymph nodes could benefit from PORT and those with >7 positive lymph nodes could benefit from chemotherapy.