The MVA for 90-day OS revealed that mortality was not related to ethnicity, but was significantly correlated with single/unmarried partner status, Medicaid or unknown insurance, and income. Nevertheless, several known histopathologic and patient prognostic factors associated with aggressive disease/poor outcomes predicted 90-day mortality included increasing patient age, male sex, tumor differentiation, stage, and non-adenocarcinoma histology and suggest that aggressive tumor spread and/or understaging at the time of resection may be the reasons for poor early survival. However, because financial and partnership variables did affect 90-day mortality, one may conclude that patients may be able to improve their short-term survival by better economic and emotional support. Of interest, even after accounting for histopathologic characteristics, tumor locations in the right mainstem bronchus and right lower lobe were associated with a decrement in OS. We hypothesize that operative complications associated with these locations may be a reason why these sites adversely affect OS in the TS and ESR populations. Treatment-related factors related to an increased mortality included the performance of a pneumonectomy and less nodes examined. We decided to include radiation in this analysis because we felt that radiation could possible result in an increased early mortality. Interestingly, radiation was strongly associated with an improved 90-day survival which may be due to patient selection factors which are not acknowledged by SEER including a better ECOG performance status, less co-morbidities, and lower risk of immediate post-operative infections. Early mortality did not improve during the years of our investigation suggesting that post-operative care was not associated with the improved outcomes in surgical patients.