Clinical And Epidemic Characteristic Of Lung Cancer In The Elderly

Objectives: To investigate the clinical and epidemic chara- cteristic of lung cancer in the elderly and try to find out a method of diagnosis of early lung cancer and provide an evidence for the standarded treatment .Methods: 536 patients in the respiratory, oncology, thoracic hospital wards of the first affiliated hospital of Da Lian medical university were selected from January,1,2005 to December, 31, 2005. 342 in the old group and 194 in the young group, respecti- vely. Sex, age, cigarette smoking, occupation, symptoms, imagi- ngs, accompany disease, positions of the tumor, misdiagnosis, distant metastasis, histologic type of tumor, stages, paraneop- lastic syndromes, treatment, diagnosis, tumorl marker, etc. were compared between the two groups.Results:1. 342 patients in the old group (234 men and 108 women) with mean age of 70.71 +/-6.54 years, 194 in the young group (126 men and 68 women) with mean age of 50.91 +/-6.28 years. The elderly were much more than the middle-aged. Male and cigarette smoking were popular in lung cancer. Most cases presented between the ages of 70~74.2. Occupation: There were more cadres and workers in the old group while more workers and vagrants in the young group.3. The time from first complains of disease to seeing doctors: the average time was 3.9 months in the old group while 2.2 months in the young group. There was significant difference between the two groups.4. Symptoms: initial symptoms included nonspecific complaints such as cough, hemoptysis, chest pain, dyspnea in the two groups. Cough was the most common symptom.5. Paraneoplastic syndromes: paraneoplastic syndromes in the two...