Clinicopathological study of bronchogenic carcinoma

The present study was undertaken to explore the clinicopathological profile of bronchogenic carcinoma.

Four hundred consecutive patients with histopathologically proven bronchogenic carcinoma, hospitalized between 1985 and 1999 at a large teaching and tertiary care referral hospital at King George's Medical University in Lucknow, India, were analysed.

The average age of the bronchogenic carcinoma patients was 57 years; 9.8% of patients were less than 40 years of age; the ratio of male to female patients was 4.3:1.0; 71% were smokers; and 87% of the smoking patients were bidi smokers. The most common histological type was squamous-cell carcinoma (46.5%), followed by adenocarcinoma (18.5%) and small-cell carcinoma (18.2%). The majority of patients (74.2%) were diagnosed in the late stages of the disease (IIIb and IV).

Bidi smoking is an important contributory factor in the development of bronchogenic carcinoma in India, and approximately 25% of patients with bronchogenic carcinoma are non-smokers.