Blood analyses and survival in symptom- and survey-detected lung cancer patients

Commonly recorded blood analyses as indicators of low- and-high risk patients with lung cancer were studied by comparing symptom- and survey-detected patients. During the period 1976-1985, in 41 of 189 non-small-cell lung cancer patients in Western Norway, lung cancer was detected by chest X-ray survey performed in the preventive tuberculosis screening programme. After adjusting for other variables, including developmental stage, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was the only blood analysis which discriminated symptom-detected patients (high ESR) from survey-detected patients (low ESR). Survey-detected patients had a better short-term survival. In multivariate survival analyses leucocyte count, lactate dehydrogenase activity and ESR were significant prognostic factors, in addition to advanced stage and detection due to symptoms. We conclude that common blood analyses such as ESR provide supplementary information concerning low- and high-risk lung cancer patients.