Clinical Profile of Lung Cancer in Females- A Single Institution Study

The global incidence of lung cancer among women is rising. By 2030, lung cancer in women is expected to increase by 43%. The factors thought to predispose women to lung cancer are exposure second hand smoke, air pollution and biofuels used for cooking. Our objectives was to study the clinical and pathological features of lung cancer in women. Material: A retrospective review of medical records of women with lung cancer who attended Amrita institute of medical sciences, Kochi, between 2015-2019 was done. Data was collected using our institution's Electronic medical records (EMR). Demographic details and clinicopathologic features were extracted from the EMR manually. Data was tabulated using Microsoft Excel. Categorical variables were expressed as frequencies and percentages., Observation :Out of the 1683 lung cancer cases seen during 2015-2019, 389 (23.1%) were females. 250 patients for whom complete data was available was included in this study. Majority of the women were above 50 years old (N= 216, 86.4%). The median age of diagnosis was 64 years (range 33- 95 years). 14 patients (5.0%) had history of pulmonary tuberculosis. The median duration of symptoms was 8.7 weeks (IQR 4.3 -13). Cough (N=173, 69.2%), dyspnoea (N=117, 46.8%) and chest pain (N = 105, 42%) were the most common symptoms. Data regarding the use of cooking medium used (biofuel/LPG) was available only in 107 patients. 15/107 (14%) patients were using biofuels for cooking. 75.2% of them presented in advanced stages (Stage IV N=188). The most common sites of metastasis were bone (N=88, 35.2 %), lung (N = 55, 22%), lymph nodes (N=55, 22%) brain (N= 38, N= 15.2%), liver (N=32, 12.8%) and adrenal gland (N=31, 12.4%). 113 patients had one and 77 patients had multiple metastatic sites. The site of primary tumour was-right upper lobe N=67 (26.8%), Right middle lobe N =11 (4.4 %%), Right Lower lobe N=46 (18.4%), Left upper lobe N=65 (25%) and left lower lobe N=52(20.8%). Adenocarcinoma was the predominant histological type (N=224, 89.6%) followed by squamous cell carcinoma (N=12, 4.8%). Actionable mutations observed were EGFR in 44% and ALK 2% and BRAF 1.2%. Conclusion: Male to female ratio in our study (4.3:1) was higher compared to the lung cancer demographics from other states in India. This finding along with rising global incidence warrants special attention and screening for women with suspicious symptoms. The incidence of EGFR mutation was also high (44%) compared to other studies from India.