Three decades of lung cancer in Christchurch

The hospital admission rate and management of bronchogenic carcinoma over a period of three decades has been studied by reviewing admissions to the acute general hospitals in Christchurch, using five year samples. Although there was an improvement in the management of the disease between the first and second decades, this plateaued between the second and third. In the first five year period, (1952-6), 97 (47%) out of 208 patients were dead within a month of diagnosis and six patients lived for more than three years. In 1962-66 (21%) out of 328 patients were dead within a month of diagnosis and 25 patients lived longer than three years. In the last five year period (1972-6) 75 patients (16.8%) out of 707 were dead within one month of diagnosis and 46 survived for more than three years. Twenty-six patients remained alive and well seven to eleven years after diagnosis, a long term survival rate of 3.6%.