Lung cancer: Presentation and pattern of care in a cancer center in South India

Abstract

Background: In India lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in males and an increasing trend in the incidence is reported from the National Cancer Registry programme.

Aims: The aim of this study is to find out the recent trends in presentation and management of lung cancer at Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum.

Methods: Published reports of hospital based cancer registries (HBCR) and population based cancer registries (PBCR) of Trivandrum were compared with reported statistics from other parts of India and global data.

Results: Lung is the leading site of cancer in males (15%) getting treatment at Regional Cancer Centre , Trivandrum in 2013 as per the HBCR. There is an increase in the age adjusted incidence rate of lung cancer among males in the Trivandrum PBCR from 14.6 to 18.5 during 2012 -2014. Among the patients who were treated at the Center majority (55.2%) presented with distant metastases with adenocarcinoma as the most common histological type (28.5%) and only 15.7% had undergone treatment with curative intent.

Conclusions: Lung cancer is the major cancer affecting males in India with a high incidence in Trivandrum and a very low percentage of patients receiving curative treatment which could be due to the high prevalence of tuberculosis and scarce availability of facilities and trained manpower for thoracic oncology.