Abstract: Objective:To explore the prognostic influence of wedge resection and lobectomy in non- small cell lung cancer pa -tients over 70years old. Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted in 230 stage-I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients (> 70years old) who underwent surgery between January 2000and January 2006. Survival and clinical characteristics of these patients were analyzed.Results: Results of univariate analysis indicated that smoking history, T grading, surgical procedure, and lymphadenec-tomy were the factors that affected patient prognosis ( P<0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that surgical procedure, T grading, and lymphadenectomy were independent prognostic factors of stage-I NSCLC patients over 70years old (P<0.05). The 5-year survival rates were 42.2% and 50.3% in wedge resection and lobectomy cases, respectively, with statistically significant difference between the two (P<0.05). Further stratified analysis of stage-I patients with T 1a indicated that no statistical significance existed in the5-year overall sur -vival rate between the wedge resection and lobectomy groups ( 51.9% and 53.3% respectively,P>0.05). Compared with lobectomy, pa-tients who underwent wedge resection had shorter operative time ( P=0.035), less postoperative bleeding ( P=0.031), and shorter postop-erative hospital stay ( P=0.045). Conclusion:Lobectomy, followed by systematic lymphadenectomy, was still the preferred surgical pro-cedure for NSCLC patients over70years old. However, for patients with T 1a, wedge resection may have comparable long-term surviv -al benefit with lobectomy. However, wedge resection results in less damage of the lung tissues. For elderly patients with poor lung func -tion, wedge resection can be the preferred choice.