OUTCOME OF CHEMOTHERAPY IN LUNG CANCER: OUR EXPERIENCE AT A RURAL TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL IN CENTRAL INDIA

Abstract

Background: It is well known that lung cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. In the treatment of lung cancer, chemotherapy has become a generally accepted and widely applied therapeutic modality. In present study we find out the outcome of chemotherapy, variations in outcome due to various factors, its effect on quality of life of patients, common complications due to it and various reasons of default among these patients.

Materials & Methods: A total of 42 cases diagnosed histopathologically as lung cancer and treated with chemotherapy over the year were analyzed.

Results: A total of 42 patients were included in the study. There were a total of 24 males (57.2%) and 18 females (42.8%) among them .7(16.6%) patients were below the age of 50 years and 35(83.4%) were more than 50 years in age. A total of 16(38%) patients diagnosed with lung carcinoma were smokers and the rest (62%) were nonsmokers. NSCLC was found to be more common than SCLC in non-smokers, while SCLC was more common among smokers. Only 30.95% of patients completed the full course of chemotherapy and thus were assessed for improvements in quality of life following chemotherapy treatment. It was found that SCLC patients showed more improvement in scores than NSCLC patients. 29 (69.05%) of the total patients left chemotherapy in between. The main reason for this was found to be financial problems followed by switching to alternate forms of medicine.

Conclusions: Lack of funds to procure chemotherapy was the major factor responsible for default among patients. In patients completing the chemotherapy, significant improvements were seen in Quality of Life.