Lung cancer: is surgery an option for persisting N2 after induction therapy?
The median survival for patients with persisting N2 disease is less favourable compared to patients with mediastinal downstaging. However, the long-term survival for patients with less than 6 involved lymph nodes is 17.5 months. Therefore surgical resection for these patients seems to be justified. After induction therapy a rigorous restaging should be performed to rule out persisting multilevel N2 disease.
It is important to continue FA supplementation over the long term in patients on methotrexate and FA in order to prevent them discontinuing treatment because of mouth ulcers or nausea and vomiting. Our data suggest that FA supplementation is also helpful in preventing neutropenia, with very little loss of efficacy of methotrexate.