Abstract
A total of 200 patients with lung cancer treated in our Surgical Department during the past 10 years were retrospectively assessed for their clinical courses. The sex ratio of these patients was 2.8: 1 (male: female) and the squamous cell carcinoma occurred in approximately 60% of the patients. Recently, the incidence of lung cancer in male elderly patients over 70 years old h s rapidly increased, suggesting its close relationship to cigarette smoking.
The 5-year-survival rate was evaluated in 151 cases and it was 18.9%. As for the prognosis, there was no significant difference between patients with squamous cell carcinoma and patients with adenocarcinoma, but a significantly unfavorable prognosis was encountered in cases of small-cell carcinoma. The clinical stage thus seemed to be closely related to the prognosis. Furthermore, the prognosis was considered to be greatly influenced by resectability and radical cure rate because resected cases showed a more favorable prognosis than those without resection as a whole; and even in non-curative cases, this tendency was also noted. However, operable cases in Stages I and II were encounterd only in 27.5% of all patients examined, therefore, it is required in the future to make every effort for improving the rate of early detection and the rate of curative operation in this field.
