Marriage predicts for survival in patients with stage III non–small-cell lung cancer
Background Comprehensive anal
Objective To evaluate whether marital status is an independent predictor of clinical outcomes in patients with stage III NSCLC who are treated uniformly with curative intent.
Methods The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model were used to estimate the overall survival and freedom from recurrence (FFR) in 355 patients with stage III NSCLC who were treated during 2000-2013.
Results 52% of patients in the cohort were married and were more likely to self-identify as white (P < .0001), reside in zip codes with a higher household median income (P < .0001), have Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status of 0 (P = .001), have higher pretreatment albumin (P = .009), undergo surgery (P = .001), and have insurance (P = .029). On multivariate analysis, marital status remained an independent predictor of survival and was associated with a 40% decreased risk of death (P < .0001), further stratifying outcomes beyond gender and stage grouping. FFR was comparable between the 2 groups (P = .108).
Limitations Retrospective analysis; information on individual support system beyond the marital and insurance status and zip code income was not available.
Conclusions In a cancer such as NSCLC, in which modern therapeutic approaches have yielded only modest survival improvements despite considerable treatment-related toxicity, marital status remains an independent predictor for survival. Marriage is likely a surrogate for better psychosocial support; the scale of survival improvements seen justifies investments into supportive care interventional strategies to help advance overall outcomes.
Funding/sponsorship None
Accepted for publication September 6, 2018
Correspondence
Melissa AL Vyfhuis, MD, PhD; mvyfhuis@umm.edu OR
Josephine L Feliciano, MD; jfelici4@jhmi.edu
Disclosures: The authors report no disclosures/conflicts of interest.
Citation JCSO 2018;16(5):e194-e201
©2018 Frontline Medical Communications
doi https://doi.org/10.12788/jcso.0427
The objective of this analysis is to evaluate the effect of marital status on OS and freedom from recurrence (FFR) in patients with stage III NSCLC who were treated at a National Cancer Institute–designated cancer center with curative intent from 2000 through 2013. We performed a detailed multivariate analysis (MVA) of patient-, disease-, and treatment-specific factors, including the interaction with racial, nutritional, and immunologic status, which to our knowledge has not been previously reported, to comprehensively evaluate the benefit of marital status in patients with LA-NSCLC.
Methods
Patient population and treatment
From January 2000 through December 2013, 355 patients diagnosed with clinical stage III NSCLC (American Joint Committee on Cancer 7th edition) were definitively treated at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland. Their clinical data were retrospectively analyzed under internal review board approval (GCC 1175, Thoracic Oncology Database). All of the patients were evaluated before treatment by a multidisciplinary team consisting of thoracic surgeons and medical and radiation oncologists. Before treatment, the patients underwent standard work-up, which included systemic imaging with positron-emission (PET), computed-tomographic (CT), PET–CT, and/or bone scan, brain imaging consisting of magnetic-resonance imaging or CT with contrast, and routine blood. Patients had documentation of mediastinal disease by either imaging, mediastinoscopy, or endobronchial ultrasound biopsy.
Definitive therapy was administered using the backbone of chemoradiation therapy (CRT) with (trimodality) or without (bimodality) surgical resection. Concurrent CRT was typically administered with weekly carboplatin–paclitaxel (areas under the curve [AUCs], 2 and 50 mg/m2, respectively) and was generally followed with 2 cycles of consolidative treatment with definitive doses of carboplatin–paclitaxel (AUCs, 5-6 and 200-225 mg/m2, respectively) as tolerated. The entire cohort was also assessed for possible trimodality therapy at the time of initial diagnosis, and patients who were potential surgical candidates were reassessed for mediastinal nodal clearance following repeat radiographic staging after full-dose CRT. Patients who experienced pathologic mediastinal clearance of disease underwent resection followed by consolidative chemotherapy. Unless there was evidence of disease progression, patients who did not have mediastinal lymph node clearance or who were found not to be a surgical candidate proceeded directly to consolidative chemotherapy. The details of patient selection for trimodality therapy and the oncological outcomes have been previously reported.10 For follow-up, patients were normally followed with serial CT or PET–CT scans as clinically indicated every 3 months for the first year, 4 to 6 months for the next 2 to 5 years, and then yearly thereafter.
,For the analysis, patients were categorized as being either married or single based on self-reporting. As a surrogate for nutrition status, patients were stratified into 4 pretreatment body mass index (BMI) cohorts based on the following World Health Organization criteria: underweight, <18.5 kg/m2; normal weight, 18.5 to <25 kg/m2; overweight, 25 to <30 kg/m2; and obesity, ≥30 kg/m2. Pretreatment albumin was also evaluated as a continuous variable. For assessment of immunological status, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was calculated at the time of diagnosis by dividing the absolute neutrophil count by the absolute lymphocyte count.
