Current Thoracic Surgery 2022 , Vol 7 , Issue 3
No-touch isolation technique in early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer surgery: a retrospective study
Mehmet Çetin1,İlteriş Türk2,Ebru Sayılır Güven2,Göktürk Fındık2,Koray Aydoğdu2,Selim Şakir Erkmen Gülhan2,Pınar Bıçakçıoğlu2
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Omer Halisdemir University Training and Research Hospital, Niğde, Turkey
2Department of Thoracic Surgery, Ataturk Chest Disease and Thoracic Surgery Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
DOI : 10.26663/cts.2022.023 Viewed : 13895 - Downloaded : 987 Background: In parallel with the change in circulating tumor cells, the no-touch isolation technique is offered as an option to reduce recurrences of non-small-cell lung cancer. We aimed to examine the relationship of this technique with recurrence and survival in our clinic.

Materials and Methods: Among 675 patients who were operated on with the diagnosis of lung cancer between 2009 and 2015, 98 patients with tumor size of less than 3 cm in the postoperative pathology report, no visceral pleural invasion or lymph node involvement, and a negative surgical margin were included in the study. The patients were divided into two groups as patients treated with and without the no-touch isolation technique (i.e., a wedge resection group prior to lobectomy and a direct lobectomy group), and the results of recurrence and survival were evaluated statistically.

Results: While adenocarcinoma was observed more frequently in the wedge resection group, squamous cell carcinoma was observed statistically more frequently among patients treated with direct lobectomy (p < 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in recurrence or survival rates between patients treated with and without the no-touch isolation technique (p = 0.746 and p = 0.689, respectively).

Conclusions: Although wedge resection before surgery is theoretically well grounded, we found that it was not clinically significant as a result of our study. The technique may prove beneficial in reevaluating chemotherapy indications based on circulating tumor cells, especially in early-stage cases where patients have not received chemotherapy, and prospective studies are needed in this regard. Keywords : lung cancer, wedge resection, circulated tumor cell, thoracic surgery