Risks of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy

The aim of the present contribution is to overview the literature and to evaluate the risks for medical and surgical complications of lung cancer surgery after induction chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy in patients with locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Obvious limitations of this report will be the complexity and heterogeneity of stage III disease in association with the difficult data collection of a large number of retrospective and small number of prospective randomized studies. The different definition of the time of postoperative mortality, as well the range of reported morbidity and mortality rates may reflect varying criteria for patient selection; differences in type and doses of induction treatment; and differences in the experiences of oncologists, radio-oncologists, and surgeons involved.