Pulmonary & Respiratory Medicine

Long-Term Lung Cancer Survival in a Province of Spain

Abstract

Isaura Parente Lamelas

Introduction and aims: To analyze the characteristics and long-term survival of patients diagnosed with lung cancer (LC), small cell and non small cell, in our hospital. Patients and methods: Retrospective study of patients with a cytohistological diagnosis of LC between 1999 and 2004. Survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. The chi-squared test was used to assess possible associations between different variables. Results: In this time period, 996 cases were diagnosed, 85.6% in males and 14.4% in females. A total of 80.6% of the patients were smokers. Squamous cell carcinoma was the most frequent in males and adenocarcinoma in females; 20.4% of the tumours were at an early stage (I and II) at the time of diagnosis and only 16.8% were amenable to surgery. Overall survival was 7.9% at 5 years and the LC-specific survival was 14%. Survival was significantly worse in advanced stages and in patients that did not receive active treatment. Conclusions: Overall 5-year survival in our series was low, but similar to that described in other Spanish registries. This may be related to the low number of patients diagnosed in early stages and who could be treated surgically.