During the Diagnosing Patients: Do You Know Before You Go? session on day one of STS 2026 at 10:15 a.m., Talal Alzghari, MD, of One Brooklyn Health-Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, will present “Oncological and Surgical Outcome Differences in Never-Smoker Women Compared to Ever-Smoker Women and Men.” In this presentation, Dr. Alzghari examines how gender and smoking status independently shape surgical and long-term outcomes following lung cancer resection—an increasingly important question as lung cancer rates continue to rise among women.
Although smoking remains the leading risk factor for lung cancer, prior studies have shown conflicting results regarding its impact on postoperative outcomes when gender is considered. To clarify these relationships, Dr. Alzghari and colleagues analyzed national registry data to compare perioperative and oncologic outcomes among women and men with differing smoking histories who underwent resection for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Analyzing more than 145,000 elective NSCLC resections from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons General Thoracic Surgery Database, the investigators found that never-smokers are becoming more common over time in both men and women. Never-smoker women emerged as a distinct group with fewer comorbidities, lower perioperative risk, and the most favorable long-term survival, while ever-smoker men experienced the highest complication rates and poorest survival. These differences persisted after risk adjustment, highlighting the independent influence of both gender and smoking status on surgical and oncologic outcomes..
In his presentation, Dr. Alzghari will discuss how these findings can inform preoperative counseling, risk stratification, and treatment planning for patients undergoing lung cancer surgery. He emphasizes that understanding the combined effects of gender and smoking history is essential to delivering more personalized, data-driven care for patients with NSCLC.