Clinico-pathological profile of lung cancer in Uttarakhand

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer is one of the most aggressive and prevalent type of malignancy causing high morbidity and mortality. Tobacco smoking continues to be the leading cause of lung cancer worldwide. An increasing incidence of lung cancer has been observed in India. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinico, a pathological profile of the lung cancer in hilly state of Uttrakhand. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of histopathologically proven cases of bronchogenic carcinoma admitted in our hospital from January 1998 to August 2005. RESULTS: Our study included 203 patients with confirmed cases of lung cancer. Male to female ratio was 8.2:1. The common age group being 40-60 years, 9.86% of the patients were less than 40 years old age. Smoking was found to be the main risk factor in 81.77% patients. The most frequent symptom was cough (72.90%) followed by fever (58.12%). The most common radiological presentation was mess lesion (46.31%). The most common histopathological type was squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (44.83%) followed by adenocarcinoma (19.78%) and small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) (16.75%). The majority patients (73.29%) were diagnosed in the later stages of the disease (III B and IV). CONCLUSION: It was found out that SCC was the most frequent histopathological form. SCLC predominates below 40 year and SCC over 60 years of age. Smoking still remains the major risk factors in pathogenesis of lung cancer.