Abstract:

Aim: Lung cancer emerges as an increasingly serious health problem in the world and in our country. The aim of this study is to determine the clinical features, delays in diagnosis and treatment, survival, and factors affecting survival of lung cancer patients followed in a tertiary hospital. Material and Methods: In this retrospective study, the clinical, pathological, survival characteristics and factors affecting survival of 210 lung cancer patients who applied to our clinic for diagnosis and treatment were evaluated. Results: The majority of the patients (mean age of 61.21±10.0) are males (90%), and 35% of the male patients were active/retired coal miners. The vast majority of men (97.9%) and 14.3% of women were smokers or exsmokers. At the time of admission 82.8% of patients were Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status 0-1. The majority of patients (79.6%) were diagnosed with nonsmall cell lung carcinoma. The rate of patients diagnosed with small cell lung carcinoma was 19.0%. The most common non-small cell lung carcinoma subtype was squamous cell carcinoma (38.5%). 77.6% of the patients were diagnosed in locally advanced or metastatic stage. The most common sites of metastasis are lung, bone, brain and liver, respectively. 9.6% of patients were not treated with curative methods. The total time from symptom to treatment was found to be 121.01±81.68 days (median 99.00 days) in our study. The median survival was 8.9 months. In multivariate analysis, not receiving curative treatment, being at advanced stage, hypercalcemia, and hypoalbuminemia were found statistically significant independent poor prognostic factors. Conclusion: In this study, we found that not receiving curative treatment, having a high ECOG performance score, being in the metastatic stage, being diagnosed with small cell carcinoma, longer the duration from time of emergence to treatment, hypercalcemia and hypoalbuminemia adversely affected survival.

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