Clinical Features and Outcomes of Small-Cell Lung Cancer Cases from Northern Turkey

Objective: To evaluate the clinical features and outcomes of small-cell lung cancer ( SCLC ) cases that were diagnosed in our clinic.

Design: Retrospective epidemiologic study.

Setting: Department of pulmonary disease at a tertiary teaching hospital.

Patients or participants: One hundred and fifty five patients with a pathological diagnosis of SCLC between January 1988 and December 1997.

Interventions: None

Measurements and results: One hundred and fifty five patients diagnosed to have SCLC comprised the study group. The group included 141 male and 14 female patients aged 32 to 85 years with a mean age of 58 ± 8.1 years. 96.8% of male and 30% of female patients were current smokers. The most frequent presenting symptoms were cough, dyspnea, and chest pain, 28%, 23.2%, and 19.2%, respectively. The most common radiologic finding was a central mass (>4cm in diameter) with hilar and/or mediastinal lymphadenopathy. The diagnosis was established by histopathologic examination of the biopsy specimens obtained by various means, in which bronchoscopy was the sole means of diagnosis in 90.7% of the patients. Staging procedures were performed in all patients resulting as: 40 (25.8%) patients in limited stage (LS) and 115 (74.2%) patients in extensive stage (ES). Metastasis was most frequently to the bones (42.9%) followed by the liver (27.6%) and the brain (12.3%). Sequential chemoradiotherapy (radiotherapy after completion of chemotherapy) was administered to LS and only chemotherapy to ES patients. The response rates including both complete and partial responses that could be evaluated for 73 patients were 80%, 41.5%, and 52% for LS, ES, and overall patients, respectively. Median survival (for 73 patients) was 311 days, 163 days, and 201 days for LS, ES, and overall patients, respectively.

Conclusions: Although demographic and clinical features of the patients were nearly the same with that of the previous series, except higher ES disease in our study, the median survival values and the response rates including both complete and partial responses for both LS and ES disease were lower than the previous series.