Overall and time-related symptomatic patterns
| Symptomatic pattern | All series n (%) | Diagnostic period# n | p-value¶ | |||
| I | II | III | IV | |||
| Non-symptomatic patients (incidental diagnosis) | 158 (12.4) | 20 | 51 | 39 | 48 | <0.01 |
| Symptomatic patients | 1119 (87.6) | 299 | 268 | 281 | 271 | |
| Patients with | ||||||
| Cough | 639 (50.0) | 184 | 153 | 160 | 142 | <0.01 |
| Systemic symptoms | 630 (49.3) | 174 | 153 | 157 | 146 | ns |
| Dyspnoea | 433 (33.9) | 111 | 96 | 106 | 120 | ns |
| Chest pain | 402 (31.5) | 142 | 105 | 87 | 68 | <0.001 |
| Bloody sputum | 381 (29.8) | 101 | 102 | 84 | 94 | ns |
| Symptoms of local or distant dissemination | 298 (23.3) | 65 | 77 | 76 | 80 | ns |
| Chest infection | 252 (19.7) | 67 | 60 | 72 | 53 | ns |
| Mean number of symptoms per patient | 2.38 | 2.82 | 2.78 | 2.64 | 2.59 | |
ns: nonsignificant. #: quartiles of the distribution of the dates of diagnosis (Period I: no. 319 (Jan. 1989–May 1992); Period II: no. 319 (Jun. 1992–Sep. 1995); Period III: no. 320 (Oct. 1995–May 1999); Period IV: no. 319 (Jun. 1999–Oct. 2002)); ¶: Yates corrected Chi-squared test