Characteristics of lung cancer patients--the Shaukat Khanum Memorial experience

The aims of this descriptive study were to characterize lung cancer patients by age at diagnosis, smoking status, and histology and, also to explore the histologic sub-type according to cigarette smoking, in a tertiary care setting. A retrospective review of 830 patients for whom smoking status was available in the records was carried out at a comprehensive cancer care facility, the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center, situated in Lahore, Pakistan. The mean age at presentation of the 830 evaluable cases was 59.8 years (standard deviation 11.8, range 18-90). Stratifying by gender, statistically significant differences were found in the average age at diagnosis between males (60.1 years) and females (57.5 years) and, in the distributions of non-smokers, current smokers, and ex-smokers, but none for histology. Similar to other populations, the age of disease onset amongst females was lower than that seen in males. The proportion of smokers was higher amongst males versus females. The reversal of smoker to non-smoker ratio when stratified by gender, may highlight the importance of exploring alternate pathways implicated in the etiology of lung cancer in our population.