Original articleGeneral thoracicPerformance at Preoperative Stair-Climbing Test Is Associated With Prognosis After Pulmonary Resection in Stage I Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
This was an observational analysis performed on a prospective database. The study was approved by the local Institutional Review Board. All patients gave their informed consent to participate in the institutional prospective database and for the use of their data for research and clinical purposes. A total of 296 consecutive patients undergoing pulmonary lobectomy and systematic lymph node dissection [13] for pathologic stage I (pT1 or pT2-N0 only) NSCLC and with complete follow-up were
Results
Patient characteristics are summarized in Table 1. Median follow-up was 43 months. The average altitude reached at preoperative stair climb test was 20 meters. Testing for a threshold effect showed that 18 meters was the best cutoff associated with long-term survival. Compared with patients who climbed less than 18 meters, patients who climbed more than 18 meters had significantly longer median survival of 97 (95% CI, 89 to 105) months vs 74 (95% CI, 63 to 85) months and 5-year survival of 77%
Comment
The association between exercise tolerance and prognosis in cancer survivors has been rarely reported. Regular moderate-intensity exercise is known to be associated with a 30% to 50% reduction in the risk of cancer-specific mortality and all-cause mortality after a diagnosis of early breast or colorectal cancer [19, 20, 21, 22]. Two studies have evaluated the prognostic importance of exercise tolerance in lung cancer. Kasymjanova and colleagues [6] assessed the prognostic value of the 6-minute
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