Background: There are currently no clear national guidelines for management of in-situ (stage 0) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). With no prospective clinical trial data, treatment strategies include both surgical resection and definitive radiation therapy (RT). We aimed to investigate survival outcomes in patients with stage 0 NSCLC who underwent surgery or RT. We also aimed to identify any differences in the treatments that the two groups received with respect to rural versus urban setting and racial variation. Methods: The 2016 National Cancer Data Base was reviewed from 2006-2015 for patients registered with a pathological diagnosis of Stage 0 NSCLC, based on the AJCC 7th edition classification for lung cancer. Patients with a prior history of malignancy, secondary malignancy other than lung, and contraindications to surgery were excluded. Univariate comparison and multivariate logistic regression modeling were utilized to identify factors associated with receipt of surgery. Patients were stratified into two groups, surgical resection and RT. Kaplan-Meier estimators and Cox proportional-hazards regression were used to compare overall survival(OS). Propensity score matching was performed using relevant demographic and clinical factors associated with receipt of surgery. All analysis was completed in SAS version 9.4 and p-values less than 0.05 were considered significant. Results: A total of 156 patients were identified with Stage 0 NSCLC who received surgery (n = 104) or RT (n = 52). Surgery was defined as lobectomy or less. Histologic subtypes were squamous cell carcinoma (54%), adenocarcinoma (45%), and bronchioloalveolar carcinoma (1%). Median age was 65 years for the surgical resection cohort and 70 years for the RT cohort. From diagnosis, median time to surgery was 21 days for the surgical resection cohort and 47 days to start of radiation for RT cohort. We did not identify any major differences with respect to rural versus urban setting or racial differences within the surgery and RT cohorts. Patients who underwent surgical resection had a superior 5 year overall survival 65% (CI, 43.49-80.56) when compared to patients who underwent RT 37% (CI, 10.63-65.05), hazard rate 0.403, p = 0.0009, 95% CI. 0.236 – 0.689). Conclusions: Our findings show a significant improved survival with surgical resection compared to RT in patients diagnosed with Stage 0 NSCLC.