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Bulletin du Cancer

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Does the primary Lung Cancer rate increase among females? Volume 91, issue 6, Juin 2004

Authors
GATA Camlica Chest Diseases Hospital , Istanbul, TURKEY
  • Page(s) : 10201-10
  • Published in: 2004

Lung cancer is still the most frequently seen malignancy among males where as females are less affected. Recently the lung cancer prevalence has been reported to increase among females in parallel to the increment in cigarette consumption. In our clinic 11.2% (44 cases) of 393 primary lung cancer cases between 1993-1997 were female. We evaluated the demographical characteristics and yearly distribution of our female patients. Mean age was 64±12.1 and 18.2% of the patients were smokers. The main complaints were dyspnoea (59%), chest pain (57%), fatigue (47%), cough (45%) and sputum production (32%). The cell type distribution rates were as follows; adenocarcinoma 45.4%, squamous cell cancer 29.5%, small cell cancer 20.5% and large cell cancer 4.6%. The diagnostic methods used were sputum cytology (27.3%), transbronchial biopsy and lavage (38.6%), thoracocentesis and pleural biopsy (15.8%), transthoracic fine needle aspiration (13,6%) and open lung biopsy (4.7%). As a result, we found a low percentage of smokers but a high rate of adenocarcinomas among our female patients. Copyright John Libbey Eurotext 2003.