Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the world, including Korea. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical features of the lung cancer patients who were seen in a University hospital between 1994 to 1998.

We performed a retrospective review of lung cancer clinical information at Kosin University Gospel Hospital from 1994 to 1998. We analyzed the age, gender, pathologic types, treatment methods and survival.

Among 1,547 patients, 1,232 patients (79.6%) were male. The age distribution ranged from 20 to 84 years, and the mean age was 60.2 years old. Squamous cell carcinoma was the most common type of lung cancer (39.7%), followed by adenocarcinoma (23.1%), and small cell carcinoma (16.4%). However, there was an increasing incidence of adenocarcinoma every year. The stages at the diagnosis were I: 6.6%, II: 6%, III: 45.6% and IV: 41.8%. For the small cell carcinoma, 44.6% of the patients were in a limited stage and 55.4% were in an extensive stage. The initial treatments included chemotherapy (46.5%), surgery (15.1%) and radiotherapy (5.1%), but 32.2% of the patients received supportive care only. For the cases receiving surgery, the 5 year survival rate for the stage I patients was 66%, that for the stage II patients was 43.2% and that for the stage III patients was 11.8%. The median survival time (MST) for patients who underwent surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy was 3.22 year, but the MST of the surgery-treated only patients was 1.51 years. So, adjuvant chemotherapy prolonged survival (p=0.000). On the subgroup analysis, young age and female lung cancer patients who did not receive adjuvant chemotherapy showed poor survival.

Squamous cell carcinoma was the most common type of lung cancer. The active treatments were important for the patients’ prognosis. For the patients receiving surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy had a role in improving survival and especially for young age and female lung cancer patients.