Resumo

HERRERA VILLALOBO, Carlos et al. Influence of diagnosis and treatment delay on the survival of patients with lung cancer. Rev cubana med [online]. 2007, vol.46, n.1. ISSN 0034-7523.

The bronchogenic carcinoma is the most frequent cause of death from cancer, with a surprising increase in its incidence. In Cuba, it is the second cause of death at all ages due to its poor survival, which depends on comorbidity, age, sex, histological type, tumor stage and on the diagnosis and treatment delay. In this paper, it was investigated the influence of the diagnosis and treatment delay, as well as some clinical and sociodemographic factors of 149 patients with diagnosis of bronchogenic cancer in this hospital from January 2003 to April 2006. A description of the information was made in tables and figures. Kaplan Meier's method and Cox's regression method (divariate and multivariate) were used to analyze survival. In the staging analysis, it was observed a predominance of patients in stage IV (46 cases-30.9 %), followed by stages IIIB (36 cases-24.4 %) and IB (26-17.4 %). However, in stages IA and IIA, very low figures were found: 3 cases (2 %) and 1 case (0.7 %), respectively. The mean time of delay in the diagnosis was 3.97 months, whereas in the treatment it was 13.89 days. The probability for a patient to live 3 ½ years with lung neoplasia, independently of the histological type and of the clinical stage, was 7.47 %.

Palavras-chave : Bronchogenic carcinoma; diagnosis delay; survival..