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Vol.37 No.2 contents | Japanese/English |
- Original Article -
Characteristics of Lung Cancer Cases Detected by Mass Survey and Some Problems Involved in Lung Cancer Screening in Tsuna-gun, Hyogo-ken
Nagayasu Okada1, Yoshio Sumida1, Yasuharu Takashima1, Tokutaro Tanaka1, Yoshihisa Akasi1, Takaharu Oohashi1, Kazuo Ito2 and Kozi Eno31Tsuna-gun Medical Association, Hyogo, 2General Health Association, Hyogo, 3Hyogo Prefectural Awazi Hospital
In order to determine the characteristics of lung cancer cases detected by lung cancer screening and to clarify some problems involved in screening, a total of 23 cases (Group A) detected by screening conducted under the Health and Medical Services Law for the Aged in Tsuna-gun, Hyogo-ken during the past seven years (1987∼1993) were investigated. Of the 23, 13 were clinical stage 0 or I (56%), the curative resection rate was 48%, the 5-year survival rate was 48.9%, and 10 of the 11 surviving cases had had clinical stage I. In the 12 cases which had not participated in the survey the year before detection, there were 8 stage I, 1 stage IIIB, and 3 stage IV . However, in the 11 cases that had participated in the survey in the year preceding detection, there were 1 stage 0, 4 stage I, 4 Stage II, 1 stage IIIA, and 1 stage IV case which had relapsed after a previous operation. The above relationship between clinical stage and survey background of each case suggested differences in the growth speed of each lung cancer as well as difficulties in detecting small sized lung cancer. Retrospective surveys of chest roentgenogram in 15 cases and their outcomes also supported the above findings. Most cases with stage I lung cancer showed slow growth. We compared the 23 survey-detected cases (Group A) with 29 lung cancer cases (Group B) detected by routine medical consultation during the same calendar period and in the same areas in which the lung cancer surveys were performed. There was length bias and many other biases between the former and the latter. More cases with slow growth were included in group A than in group B. The above findings suggest that it is still difficult to detect rapidly growing lung cancers early even by annual lung cancer screening.
key words: Characteristics of screen-detected lung cancer, Problems in lung cancer screening
Received: July 29, 1996
Accepted: January 10, 1997
JJLC 37 (2): 143-150, 1997
