BACKGROUND: This research aimed to determine high-risk factors of supraclavicular recurrence for limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC) patients to discover a potential subpopulation that can benefit from prophylactic supraclavicular irradiation (PSCI).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Between July 2006 and July 2011, LS-SCLC patients without supraclavicular lymph node (SCLN) involvement consecutively treated with concurrent chemo-radiation but without PSCI in the Radiotherapy Department of the Cancer Institute and Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, were retrospectively analyzed. SCLN recurrence rate, overall survival (OS), and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) were assessed. Binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to discover the high-risk factors related to the SCLN recurrence. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were drawn to evaluate logistic regression model prediction performance.

RESULTS: Eighty-eight LS-SCLC patients were analyzed in this study. During 99 months (ranging from 72 months to 124 months) for survivors, 28 (31.8%) had SCLN recurrence. There were significant differences for median DMFS and OS between LS-SCLC patients with and without SCLN recurrence. The logistic regression model revealed that lymphadenopathy at mediastinal level 2 and level 3 prior to chemotherapy were significantly associated with SCLN recurrence, which was validated by ROC.

CONCLUSIONS: Lymphadenopathy at mediastinal level 2 and level 3 prior to chemotherapy were the high-risk factors associated with SCLN recurrence for patients with LS-SCLC. Further work is needed to determine whether patients with these factors can benefit from PSCI.

Keywords: Lymph Nodes, Local Lymph Node Assay, Radiotherapy, Risk Factors, Small Cell Lung Carcinoma, Adolescent, Clavicle, Logistic Models, ROC Curve, young adult