No prognostic impact of staging bone scan in patients with stage IA non-small cell lung cancer

To investigate the survival benefit of preoperative bone scan in asymptomatic patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

This retrospective study included patients with radical resection for stage T1N0M0 NSCLC between March 2013 and December 2018. During postoperative follow-up, we monitored patient survival and the development of bone metastasis. We compared overall survival, bone metastasis-free survival, and recurrence-free survival in patients with or without preoperative bone scan. Propensity score matching and inverse probability of treatment weighting were used to minimize election bias.

A total of 868 patients (58.19 ± 9.69 years; 415 men) were included in the study. Of 87.7% (761 of 868) underwent preoperative bone scan. In the multivariable analyses, bone scan did not improve overall survival (hazard ratio [HR] 1.49; 95% confidence intervals [CI] 0.91–2.42; p = 0.113), bone metastasis-free survival (HR 1.18; 95% CI 0.73–1.90; p = 0.551), and recurrence-free survival (HR 0.89; 95% CI 0.58–1.39; p = 0.618). Similar results were obtained after propensity score matching (overall survival [HR 1.28; 95% CI 0.74–2.23; p = 0.379], bone metastasis-free survival [HR 1.00; 95% CI 0.58–1.72; p = 0.997], and recurrence-free survival [HR 0.76; 95% CI 0.46–1.24; p = 0.270]) and inverse probability of treatment weighting.

There were no significant differences in overall survival, bone metastasis-free survival, and recurrence-free survival between asymptomatic patients with clinical stage IA NSCLC with or without preoperative bone scan.