Supervisors info:
Αχείμαστος Απόστολος, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Συρίγος Κωνσταντίνος, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Ρούσσου Παρασκευή, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
Introduction
Lung cancer is the most common malignancy as far as impact and mortality are concerned. Patients with lung cancer face many problems during the course of their disease, and in some cases they need hospitalization for further treatment and cure. The reasons of their admission into the hospital concern mostly their main disease or its progress or the effects of therapeutic agents used (surgery, chemotherapy, radiation).
Objective
The purpose of this retrospective study was the identification of the most common causes of hospitalization concerning patients with lung cancer in internal medicine departments.
Materials and Methods
We studied all the patients with lung cancer who were admitted in the internal medicine department of general hospital “Sotiria” in one year period (from 01/2015 to 12/2015). We found, in total, 95 patients (76 men and 19 women) with detailed medical records.
Results
Among the 95 patients of our study, 76 were male (80%) and 19 female (20%) with average age of 66,7 years (SD=8,2). The 85,3% of the patients suffered from NSCLC with the 84% of them in stage IV and the 14,7% suffered from SCLC with the 64,3% of them in extensive stage.
The most common causes of hospitalization was fever 16,8% (in most of the cases due to an infection with or without neutropenia, or as a
paraneoplasmatic manifestation), respiratory inufficiency 14,7% with dyspnea 11,6%, asthenia-weakness 14,7%, infections 14,7% (almost exclusively of low respiratory tract), neurologic disorders 19,7%(mostly due to brain metastases) with mental status disturbances 8,4% and anemia 12,6% (of cronic disease or due to toxicity of cytotoxic therapy).
The average duration of surveillance in hospital was 8,3 days (SD=5,4). During hospitalization, the 51,6% of the patients developed complications and the 89,5% received conservative-relieving therapy. There was improvement in the 76,8% of the patients, 13,7% remain stable and 9,5% died. Factors related with better outcomes were the male sex, symptoms such as cough, fever or pain, patients receiving already chemiotherapy and the absence of complications during their stay.
Conclusion
Lung cancer patients face a variety of problems during the course of their disease which often lead to hospitalization. The reasons for hospitalization may be the difficulty in dealing with symptoms of the disease itself or its metastases, the deterioration of already existing diseases or, finally, the complications of antineoplasmatic therapy.
