Quality of Life Beyond Five Years After Lung Cancer Resection: An Analysis of the Boston Lung Cancer Study

Quality of Life Beyond Five Years After Lung Cancer Resection: An Analysis of the Boston Lung Cancer Study



OBJECTIVE
Patient-reported quality of life (QOL) beyond five years after lung cancer resection is largely unknown. The objective of this study was to evaluate QOL among long-term lung cancer survivors who underwent lung cancer resection in the Boston Lung Cancer Study (BLCS).

METHODS
The BLCS is a cancer epidemiology cohort study that recruited patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer in Boston, MA from 1993-2025. Beginning in 2024, the BLCS administered the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C301 to all surviving patients in the cohort. For the present study, we identified BLCS participants who were sent the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire >5 years after they underwent lung resection for stage I lung cancer. We evaluated QOL scores on each of the different scales in the study cohort and compared these QOL scores to the average QOL scores from a representative sample of the general U.S. population aged ≥70 years; this age group was selected to most closely match the age of patients in our cohort.

RESULTS
Among 564 patients who met inclusion criteria and were sent the EORTC QLQ-C30 survey at least five years after lung cancer surgery, 200 (35.4%) responded. Among participants who responded, most were female (67.0%). The median age at lung cancer resection was 65.8 (IQR: 58.1, 71.5) years, and the median time from surgery to survey completion was 8.6 (IQR: 6.0-11.0) years.

In the overall cohort, the mean (SD) global health score was 69.2 (19.5); this was numerically higher than that among individuals of a comparable age in the general U.S. population (mean: 64.3, SD: 21.9). The overall cohort had either similar or better QOL when compared individuals of a comparable age in the general U.S. population across the other 13 scales (Figure).

In a propensity score-matched analysis of 46 patients who underwent lobectomy and 46 who underwent sublobar resection, there were no statistically significant differences in QOL life scores on the global health score or the other 13 scales.

CONCLUSIONS
In this analysis of long-term survivors after lung cancer resection in the Boston Lung Cancer Study, patients who underwent lung cancer resection reported similar or slightly better QOL compared to comparably aged individuals in the general U.S. population. Long-term patient-reported QOL was similar between patients who underwent sublobar resection versus lobectomy.

Quiana Guo (1), Alexandra Potter (1), Bryan Rettner (2), Alexander Zhu (3), Andrea Shafer (1), Jui Kothari (1), Nikhil Panda (1), Michael Lanuti (4), David Christiani (1), Chi-Fu Yang (5), (1) Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, (2) Mass General Hospital, boston, MA, (3) Massachusetts General Hospital, Cambridge, MA, (4) Harvard University, Boston, MA, (5) Massachusetts General Hospital, Winchester, MA