The April issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery features an interesting retrospective comparison of long-term outcomes of clinical stage I NSCLC matched patients treated by VATS lobectomy or SBRT. Cases treated by VATS achieved significantly better overall survival and disease control compared to SBRT patients.

Interestingly enough, the authors underline that all cases were “biopsy proven” NSCLC. I wonder if the lack of cyto-histological diagnosis could account, at least in part, for the good long-term results published after SBRT as the sole therapy in early stage NSCLC.