Evidence for surgical resections in oligometastatic lung cancer

Stage IV lung cancer occurs in about 40–50% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and about 7% of these patients will show just a solitary or a limited number of metastasis after complete examination. With a poor median survival rate of around 8–11 months, its management historically is limited to palliative chemotherapy. The management of lung cancer has evolved over the past decade, as more knowledge has been acquired with regards to its molecular biology, pathogenesis and response to treatment. The once followed dictum of palliative chemotherapy for metastatic NSCLC has drastically changed over the past few years concurrent with the advancement in diagnostics, and increasing evidence to suggest that these once incurable disease are now potentially curable or at least has favourable outcomes in terms of median survival and disease free survival after control of primary tumor and local ablative therapies are instituted to the metastatic sites