Prognostic indicators of survival in patients with small-cell lung cancer at a tertiary care center in Lebanon

OBJECTIVE: Small-cell lung cancer is a very aggressive tumor associated with high invasiveness and ease of metastasis and therefore poor prognosis. In the literature, several demographical, clinical as well as pathological factors including age, stage, gender and smoking were cited as independent prognosticators of survival. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study that includes 222 patients diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer between 2010 and 2019. Clinical and demographic data were extracted from their medical records. The Kaplan–Meier and logistic regression models of statistical analysis were used to evaluate the association of these variables with survival. RESULTS: Forty-five percent of patients were found to be alive at the time of data collection. The median survival of patients with small-cell lung cancer was found to be 14 months. On univariate analysis, increasing age as well as stage (extensive disease) were found to be significantly associated with decreased survival at 3 years. On the contrary, both gender and smoking status at diagnosis were not shown to significantly influence survival. On multivariate analysis, both age as well as stage remained significantly associated with survival. CONCLUSION: Limited data exist in the literature regarding the prognostic indicators of survival in small-cell lung cancer, especially from the Middle East area. In our study, both age and stage at the time of diagnosis were found to significantly influence survival. Further studies are needed to assess the association of other factors with survival.