Female patients with small cell lung cancer live longer than male patients

The incidence of lung cancer is rising in women in the United States, and recent reports have suggested that female patients treated for small cell lung cancer have an improved survival compared with their male counterparts. In view of these findings, we decided to determine if, in our patient population, women live longer than men and if a higher proportion of female patients are entering our trials.

The survival of women entering therapeutic clinical trials for small cell lung cancer from 1973 through 1986 at the National Cancer Institute-Navy Medical Oncology Branch was evaluated and compared with the survival of similarly treated men during the same time period.

The survival of female patients was longer than that of male patients (median of 13 months versus 10 months). Cox proportional hazards modeling incorporating multiple prognostic factors indicated that women survived significantly longer than men (p = 0.002) when adjustment for other significant factors was made. This survival advantage for women was consistent in both early and late time periods analyzed. In addition, women constituted a larger proportion of patients entering clinical trials in the later time period, as is consistent with the rising incidence of lung cancer in women nationwide.

We believe it will be important that comparisons of current clinical trials with older trials that enrolled fewer women control for the favorable prognostic factor of the female sex.