Abstract

Lung cancer is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Shifts in histological tumour type distribution have been reported to accompany changes in lung cancer incidence in many countries. We evaluated the patients diagnosed as lung cancer histopathologically in Atatürk Chest Disease and Thoracic Surgery Center between January 1997- December 2000 for investigate this subject. These patients were classified according to age, sex and histologic diagnosis. Total number of the patients is 2216. Two hundred twenty four (10.1%) of them were female and 1992 (89.9%) of them were male. The mean age in all cases was 57.3±10.9 years, in women was 56.8±11.9, in men was 57.4±10.8. Seventy eight percent of all cases were non-small cell carcinoma, 15.5% were small cell carcinoma, 6.8% were unclassified types and the other malign tumours. Adenocarcinoma was the most frequent type of lung cancer in women (45.9%) and squamous cell carcinoma was the most frequent type of lung cancer in men (42.2%). By years, the incidence of squamous cell carcinoma was decreasing but adenocarcinoma was increasing. Seventy two percent of the cases were diagnosed by bronchoscope, 8.6% of the cases by transthoracic needle biopsy, 0.4% of the cases by sputum cytology and 19.5% of the cases by surgical approaches. We believed that the type and distribution of the lung cancer must be known for prevention of the lung cancer and future treatment managment.