Radical aggressive treatment among non-small cell lung cancer patients with malignant pleural effusion without extra-thoracic disease.

Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is an indicator of advanced disease (stage M1a) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Typically, these patients are candidates for palliative treatment. There is a lack of evidence about the radical surgical treatment in carcinomatous pleuritis with massive effusion. Here, we present data from a specific subset of patients with MPE treated with systemic therapy and aggressive surgical therapy. M1a NSCLC adenocarcinoma patients with MPE and without extra-thoracic disease were included. After receiving systemic therapy, all patients underwent surgical treatment, which included pneumonectomy or lobectomy, plus mediastinal dissection. Following surgery, patients received radiotherapy to thoracic wall and mediastinum. A total of six patients were analyzed. All patients had an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status ≤1, two patients harbored EGFR mutation and were treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), the other four patients were treated with pemetrexed and platin as first-line treatment. Following systemic therapy, two patients had a pneumonectomy, four patients had a lobectomy plus pleurectomy performed. All patients continued with maintenance systemic therapy, and achieved complete responses, according to RECIST 1.1 criteria. The media progression-free survival (PFS) time was 15.9 months (95% CI: 15.6-55.5 months). At the last follow-up, all patients were still alive, with 4 of them without signs of macroscopic tumoral activity. The median overall survival (OS) was not reached. NSCLC patients with MPE without extra-thoracic disease could benefit from an aggressive surgical approach following standard of care systemic therapy. However, considering the low sample size of this study and the relatively low incidence of MPE without extra-thoracic disease, further prospective multi-center studies are necessary to evaluate aggressive surgery as a therapeutic option.