Selective lymph node dissection for clinical T1 stage non-small cell lung cancer

Recent advances lung cancer screening and the extensive use of imaging facilities have led to an earlier diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (1). Currently, the treatment methods for lung cancer mainly include surgical treatment, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy and multidisciplinary treatment (2). For patients with T1 stage of NSCLC but without distant metastasis, surgical treatment remains the accepted choice and the only possible cure (3). In clinical practice we carried out selective lymph node dissection (SLND) for patients with early-stage NSCLC, although many lymph nodes were dissected, the operative time, postoperative drainage tube indwelling time and postoperative chylothorax incidence were all increased, but the lymph nodes dissected were rarely metastatic (4). In recent years, with the increase of elderly patients with relatively poor body condition and the popularity of “minimally invasive” concept, in order to reduce surgical trauma, many scholars have explored sublobectomy methods, such as anatomical pulmonary segmentectomy or wedge resection to treat stage T1 lung cancer (5,6)