Prognostic Significance of the Highest Mediastinal Lymph Node Involvement in Patients with Stage III-N2 Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Highest mediastinal lymph node (HMLN) involvement is a category of uncertain resection, yet the prognostic significance of HMLN involvement remains controversial. A total of 486 patients with pathological stage III-N2 disease who underwent radical resection were enrolled from January 2015 to December 2018. Patients were allocated into two groups—HMLN involvement (219 cases) and HMLN-negative (249 cases) groups. Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to evaluate the impact of HMLN involvement on 5-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS). The proportion of patients with multiple N2 diseases (72.1