Hennon M, Groman A, Kumar A, et al. - Because of increased emphasis by the public on specialty specific rankings, public reporting initiatives are underway or being considered by several surgical specialties whose databases rank programs on the basis of short-term outcomes, researchers here used the National Cancer Database to evaluate whether comparing short-term peri-operative to long-term survival outcomes in all patients managed at major centers affords a valid approach. The abovementioned database was explored for patients who received a diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer between 2008-2012, providing 5 year follow up for all patients at centers treating at least 100 patients every year. There were 298,175 patients from 541 centers included in this study, 102,860 of whom surgical resection. When comparing cancer treatment centers, findings revealed a poor correlation between short-term peri-operative outcome rankings and long-term survival outcome rankings. Further inquiry is needed for factors explaining this discrepancy. For public reporting, rankings on the basis of short term outcomes alone may be incomplete.