WCLC 2019: VIOLET Study Reports Benefits of VATS vs Open Lobectomy
Posted: Friday, September 27, 2019
For patients with early-stage lung cancer, minimally invasive video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) lobectomy is associated with significantly fewer in-hospital complications and shorter length of stay compared with open lobectomy, according to the results of the British VIOLET trial, presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 2019 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Barcelona (Abstract PL02.06). Involving 503 participants from 9 centers randomly assigned to VATS (n = 247) or open (n = 256) lobectomy, VIOLET was the largest randomized trial conducted to date to compare the clinical efficacy, safety, and oncologic outcomes of open surgery versus VATS, which is the United Kingdom’s most popular type of access for lung cancer resection
Eric Lim, MD, of Royal Brompton Hospital, London, United Kingdom, and coauthors reported that the better VATS results were achieved “without any compromise to early oncologic outcomes—pathologic complete resection and upstaging of mediastinal lymph nodes—nor any difference in serious adverse events [P = .897] in the early postoperative period.” In-hospital complications occurred in 32.8% of patients receiving VATS and in 44.3% who underwent open surgery (P = .008). In addition, those treated with VATS had a shorter median length of stay than the open-surgery cohort (4 vs. 5 days; P = .008).
The patients in both arms were about equally divided by gender, and the mean age was 69 years. The cancers of almost all patients (94%) had not spread to the lymph nodes, and 92.5% were clinical T stage 1 or 2. Of the study patients, about 90% in each arm ultimately had a lobectomy.
Disclosure: The study authors’ disclosure information may be found at wclc2019.iaslc.org.
