Publication

Abstract : Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of the cancer-related deaths in developed countries. In India, it is usually diagnosed in the advanced stages. Quality of life (QOL) is an important factor to be assessed to aid the therapeutic decisions and know the prognosis of the disease. This study is aimed at the assessment of QOL in patients at the time of diagnosis of lung cancer and correlating them with the stage of lung cancer. There is the paucity of similar data from the Indian subcontinent and the Western world on these issues. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such paper correlating QOL with the stage of disease, in lung cancer patients. Materials and Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted on 87 newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer at the Department of Respiratory, Sleep, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine at the Metro Centre for Respiratory Diseases, Metro Hospital, Noida. Data were collected between January 2015 and June 2015. The QOL data was collected using questionnaires filled at the time of diagnosis of lung cancer and were correlated with the stage of lung cancer. Results: About 81.6% of lung cancer patients were male and 81.6% of patients were smokers. Most of our patients (93.1%) presented with advanced-stage lung cancer and 61.8% already had distant metastasis at the time of presentation. Data from QOL questionnaires revealed lower scores as compared to the Western population, indicating much poorer QOL at the time of diagnosis of lung cancer. Indian patients have more severe and distressing symptoms in comparison to the Western population. Patients had worse symptoms in Stage 3 B or 4, i.e., at the onset of the diagnosis. Conclusion: Lung cancer patients are diagnosed at advanced stages of the disease and have a significantly poor QOL as compared to their Western counterparts. A majority of these patients have a poor QOL that precludes definitive therapy.