Survival in Patients with Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Receiving Supportive Care
PRATHEEP RIANTA WAN, M.D., M.Sc., M.R.C.P.(UK)*, ARNON TITAYANPONG, B.Sc. (Medical Record)*, RATTANA CHAISUKSUWAN, M.S. (Applied Statistics)*
Affiliation : * Division of Academic Medicine, Central Chest Hospital, Nonthaburi 11000, Thailand.
Setting : A 500-bed referral cardiothoracic centre.
Method : Follow-up study in patients with advanced NSCLC, diagnosed from January to December 1996, who, for a variety of reasons, did not receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy. All patients were followed-up until death or defaulted. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and log rank test were employed.
Results : A total of 130 patients with histologically proven NSCLC receiving supportive care were followed. 98 patients were males and 32 were females. The mean age was 61 years ( SD 13.5). 82 patients were in stage 3B and 48 patients in stage 4. In stage 3B, the median survival was 13 weeks (range: 1 - 94, 75th centile = 7, 25th centile = 18 weeks). For stage 4, the median survival was 8 weeks (range : 0.5 - 31, 75th centile = 4, 25th centile = 10 weeks). For pooled data of stage 3B and 4, median survival was 11 weeks (range : 0.5-94, 75th centile = 6, 25th centile = 16 weeks).
Conclusions : Survival among patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer is uni- formly short. Considering this poor prognosis, implementation of resources and strategies to diag- nose an early stage of lung cancer should be one of the highest priorities in the national health plans.
Keywords : Lung Cancer, Non-Small-Cell Type, Survival
