Abstract
Introduction: Comorbid conditions may affect survival by influencing treatment decisions and prognosis.
Aim of this study was to determine the impact of cardiovascular comorbidity on the survival of patients in the first and second stage of NSCLC.
Methods: The study included 140 patients with NSCLC, in the first and second stage who were treated in the period from January 2004 December 2006. 60 patients (30 in the first and 30 in the second stage) were treated surgically, and 80 patients (40 in the first and 40 in the second stage) is due to the presence of cardiovascular comorbidity treated with chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy and these patients received standard chemotherapy with cisplatin (60mg/m2, 1st day) and etoposide (100mg/m2, 1-3. day), and radiotherapy (40 Gy).
Results: In 43 patients (30.71%) was established cardiovascular comorbidity. The most frequent comorbidities were chronic cardiomyopathy (22 or 15.71%), ischemic heart disease (19 or 13.57%) and hypertension (19 or 13.57%). Cardiovascular comorbidities were higher in smokers (p=0.0916) and patients with low Karnofsky status (p=0.001).
Median survival for all patients was 19.82 months (in the first stage 20.33, and in the second stage 19.31). Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used to compare survival time among patients with a presence or absence cardiovascular comorbidities. There was not a statistically significant relationship between shorter survival time and a history of cardiovascular comorbidity (p=0.1040).
Conclusions: This study did not show a statistically significant effect of the presence of cardiovascular comorbidity on survival of patients in the first and second stage of the disease.
- © 2011 ERS