Prevention of Tumor Spread Due to Lung Cancer Surgery

The VALID study is designed to obtain information regarding factors associated with the risk of recurrence after resection of early stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). Until recently, the only clearly identified prognostic factor was the stage of the disease. Recent development of sensitive molecular assays has provided a way to study the effect of circulating tumor cells on clinical outcome. Preliminary studies have shown that tumor cells detected by such means in lymph nodes or in bone marrow are associated with an increased risk of recurrence. Preliminary studies have also indicated that the level of circulating tumor cells in the blood stream is effected by intraoperative factors, i.e. the sequence of vessel ligation. The main objective for this study is to investigate the influence of intraoperative sequence of vessel ligation and how this affects tumor recurrence and survival. In addition, we will also investigate the use of molecular assays to detect circulating tumor cells as a surrogate endpoint for the occurrence of distant metastases and/or death after surgery for NSCL. Several of these molecular markers have proven their value in case series but have not been rigorously tested for association with the clinical endpoints of interest, tumor recurrence and survival. We believe that this study may lead to important answers about how the spread of tumor cells occurs and if novel detection methods can be used to predict patient outcome.