PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Meert, Anne Pascale
AU  - Gorham, Julie
AU  - Berghmans, Thierry
AU  - Sculier, Jean Paul
TI  - The lung cancer patient in the emergency department
DP  - 2011 Sep 01
TA  - European Respiratory Journal
PG  - 4675
VI  - 38
IP  - Suppl 55
4099  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/Suppl_55/4675.short
4100  - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/Suppl_55/4675.full
SO  - Eur Respir J2011 Sep 01; 38
AB  - Introduction: – Currently, there are very few data in the literature on the causes of emergency department consultation for lung cancer patients, leading us to review the records of patients with lung cancer who presented at the emergency room of our cancer institute in order to determine the importance of emergencies and the main causes.Methods: – We conducted a retrospective study including all patients with lung cancer consulting at the emergency department over a three years period (1st January 2008 and 31st December 2010).Results: – Among 6575 consultations, 548 (8.3%) were selected, corresponding to 269 patients with lung cancer (out of 626 patients with lung cancer treated in our institution during the same period). Their main characteristics were: men/women 169/100, median age 61 years, non small cell lung cancer/small cell lung cancer 234/35, stage I/II/III/IV 7/3/42/217. The main reasons of consultation were respiratory symptoms (22.3%), fever (19.9%), pain (16.3%) and digestive symptoms (13.5%). Symptoms were due directly to cancer in 32.3%, to a cancer complication in 14.4% and to anticancer treatment in 20.3% of the cases.The majority of the consultations lead to hospital admission: 54.5% were admitted in normal ward and 8.2% in the Intensive Care Unit. Median duration of hospitalisation was 9 days. Over the 344 hospitalisations, 61 deaths occurred (17.7%).Conclusion: – Our study shows that lung cancer patients represent only 8% of the patients consulting in the emergency department. About half of the lung cancer patients have at least one consultation in emergency during their disease mainly for pain and respiratory problems.