Clinicopathological Features of Bronchogenic Carcinoma: A Series of 59 Patients

Abstract

Bronchogenic carcinoma is the most frequent cancer in the world with an overwhelmingly male predominance. However, now females are showing a steady increase in incidence. It is usually diagnosed by genera] physicians as pulmonary tuberculosis and treated with ATT (69% in our study) for prolonged periods resulting in inordinate delay from presentation to definitive treatment (mean total delay of 109 days in one Centre).  

Data of 59 consecutive patients presenting in the first 6 months of 1998 was collected and compiled. The results following the general pattern of bronchogenic carcinoma as found to be prevelant in international studies. The significance feature emerging in our study was the long delay in presentation leading to advance malignancy at presentation to the extent that all the patients in this short series had advanced disease i.e., stage III a or above.