Table 1.

Recent meta-analyses and systematic reviews on stage III non-small cell lung cancer.

Reference	Number of included studies	Number of randomized studies	Total number of patients	Overall survival	Disease-free survival; progression-free survival	Tumor downstaging; pathological complete response; local control	Toxicity
McElnay et al. (11)	6	6	868	–OS was not significantly different between surgery and radiotherapy in bimodality treatment trials [HR = 1.01 (95% CI 0.82–1.23); p = 0.954] –OS was not significantly different between surgery and radiotherapy in trimodality treatment trials [HR = 0.87 (95% CI 0.75–1.01); p = 0.068] –Overall OS of all trials [HR = 0.92 (95% CI 0.81 to 1.03); p = 0.157]
Pöttgen et al. (12)	6	6	1,322	–OS was not significantly different between surgical and definitive radiotherapy arms [HR = 0.92 (95% CI 0.82–1.04); p = 0.19]	–PFS was not significantly different between surgical and definitive radiotherapy arms [HR = 0.91 (95% CI 0.73–1.13); p = 0.4]		–Treatment-related toxicity was higher in the surgical arms than the radiotherapy arms [RR = 3.56 (95% CI 1.65–7.72); p = 0.0005]
Xu et al. (13)	7	7	1,049	–OS was not significantly different in the surgical group compared to the radical radiotherapy group after neoadjuvant chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy [HR = 0.95 (95% CI 0.81–1.10); p = 0.49]	–PFS was not significantly different in the surgical group –Compared to the radical radiotherapy group after neoadjuvant chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy [HR = 0.90 (95% CI 0.77–1.05); p = 0.19]	–Mediastinal pCR was significantly different in patients who received neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy prior to surgical resection compared to those who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy [OR = 3.61 (95% CI 1.07–12.15); p = 0.04]
Guo et al. (14)	12	8	2,724	–5-year OS was significantly different when comparing induction chemoradiotherapy to induction chemotherapy alone prior to surgery [HR = 0.89 (95% CI 0.68–1.19); p = 0.44]	–5-year PFS was not significantly different when comparing induction chemoradiotherapy to induction chemotherapy alone prior to surgery [HR = 0.74 (95% CI 0.43–1.26); p = 0.26]	–Induction chemoradiation prior to surgery results in significantly improved downstaging [OR = 0.75 (95% CI, 0.63–0.89); p = 0.001], mediastinal pCR [OR = 0.72 (95% CI, 0.60–0.88); p = 0.001], and in LC [OR = 0.64 (95% CI, 0.48–0.85); p = 0.002] compared with induction chemotherapy alone
Ren et al. (15)	3	3	1,084	–2- and 4-year OS were not significantly different when comparing induction treatment plus surgery [RR = 1.00 (95% CI 0.85–1.17); p = 0.98] to combined chemoradiotherapy as definitive therapy [RR = 1.13 (95% CI 0.85–1.51); p = 0.39]	–PFS was significantly different when comparing induction chemoradiotherapy prior to surgery [RR = 1.78; (95% CI 1.08–2.92); p = 0.02] to chemotherapy alone [RR = 1.05 (95% CI 0.61–1.81); p = 0.86]
Shah et al. (16)	7	1	339	–OS was not significantly different when comparing induction chemoradiotherapy to induction chemotherapy alone after meta-analysis of RCTs [HR = 0.93 (95% CI 0.54–1.62), p = 0.81] and retrospective studies [HR = 0.77 (95% CI 0.50–1.19), p = 0.24]

CI, confidence interval; DFS, disease-free survival; HR, hazard ratio; LC, local control; OR, odds ratio; OS, overall survival; pCR, pathological complete response; PFS, progression-free survival; RCT, randomized controlled trials; RR, relative risk.