Abstract
Background
Lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer death in South Korea since 2000. This study examined the clinical characteristics of lung cancer patients diagnosed in a community hospital from the year 2000 to 2005, and compared these results with previously reported statistical data.
Method
The lung cancer data in a form of an electronic medical record was downloaded from the hospital medical information system. The clinical characteristics of the 1,509 patients with lung cancer were analyzed retrospectively.
Result
The mean age of the patients was 63.7 years. 82.5% and 74.5% of the patients were men and smokers, respectively. Squamous cell carcinoma (41.6%) was the most common pathology type followed by adenocarcinoma(32.3%) and small cell carcinoma(13.9%). When 604 patients who were diagnosed from 2000 to 2003 were compared with 905 patients diagnosed from 2004 to 2005, the age of patients increased significantly (61.5 years vs. 65.1 years; p<0.001) and the proportion of adenocarcinomas was significantly higher(29.3% vs. 34.4%; p=0.046).
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