A meta-analysis comparing the safety and effectiveness of microwave ablation plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone in patients with lung cancer

The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to assess the safety and efficacy of microwave ablation in combination with chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone in the treatment of patients with lung cancer. Literature comparing microwave ablation combined with chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone for the treatment of lung cancer was searched in Embase, PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane Library databases. After data extraction, methodological quality assessment and screening of the literature according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, analyses were performed using RevMan 5.4 and Stata 17.0 software. Microwave ablation combined with chemotherapy was superior to chemotherapy alone in improving disease control rate (odds ratio = 2.48, P < 0.001) and reducing the incidence of chemotherapy-related adverse effects (odds ratio = 0.62, P = 0.004); Microwave ablation combined with chemotherapy was also a significant protective factor for progression-free survival (hazard ratio = 0.39, P < 0.001) and overall survival (hazard ratio = 0.44, P < 0.001). Moreover, the rate of complete ablation was relatively high (Effect Size = 0.89, P < 0.001). In addition to the superiority of microwave ablation combined with chemotherapy over chemotherapy alone in terms of disease response and survival prognosis, we were surprised to find that the combination group also had a lower incidence of chemotherapy-related adverse effects.