Clinical and operational impact of single anesthesia events in the surgical management of early-stage lung cancer: a single-center retrospective cohort study.

Background: Lung cancer causes 160,000 annual deaths in the U.S. Delays of >8 weeks after radiologic detection worsen outcomes: increasing upstaging risk and reducing median survival. This study aimed to evaluate whether single anesthesia events (SAEs), which combine diagnosis (via robotic bronchoscopy) and treatment (via robotic surgery), reduce time to treatment interval (TTI) and cost compared to the standard of care in early-stage lung cancer patients. Methods: Early-stage lung cancer patients who underwent biopsy and resection from October 2021 to August 2024 were identified and grouped by surgical event: SAE Results: Total of 61 patients (42 traditional, 19 SAE) were included. Patient characteristics had no significant difference. Median pathological nodule size (cm) was lower in the SAE cohort (1.5 Conclusions: Compared with the traditional pathway, the more streamlined SAE approach was associated with a significantly shorter TTI without increased direct costs. These findings suggest that SAE may represent an operationally efficient approach to the management of selected patients with early-stage lung cancer, although larger studies are needed to assess quality-of-life benefits and to confirm the clinical & operational implications.