Carcinoma of the lung in women.

The 5-year survival of 293 men and of 78 women undergoing pulmonary resection and mediastinal lymph node dissection is compared. These patients were broken into two age groups: Group 1, 40 through 49 years of age, and Group 2, 50 years of age and older. They were subdivided further according to clinical stage, cell type, and sex. Of the 25 men in Group 1, 15 (60%) survived 5 years, while 98 (37%) of the 268 men in Group 2 survived 5 years. Among the 31 women in Group 1, 5 (16%) survived for 5 years, while 15 (32%) of the 47 women in Group 2 survived for that length of time. The survival among women in the younger age group was significantly lower than for both groups of women in the older age group (p = 0.0335) and men in the younger age group (p = 0.0033). This is believed to be due to the higher incidence of both Stage III disease and adenocarcinoma in the younger women. Twenty-two of the younger women (71%) were classified Stage III compared with 14 (30%) of the older women. Fourteen younger men (56%) had reached Stage III, and 101 older men (38%) were classified as Stage III. These data suggest that sex is an important factor in determining survival because there appears to be a relationship between it and the stage of the disease, and cell type. Overall, women had a poorer 5-year survival than men. Younger women have a strikingly lower survival than any other group, which is explained by their higher incidence of both Stage III classification and adenocarcinoma.