Meilleur pronostic des sujets de 45 ans et moins, atteints de cancer du poumon, lié au bon état général et au stade TNM plus faible (étude rétrospective et comparative)

Summary Background Bronchogenic carcinoma (BC) is a worldwide health public problem with a parallel but delayed development to smoking. The prognosis of BC in young patients is poorly known mainly because of few studies that have looked at this group of patients. The hypothesis of our study is that ‘young’ patients with BC have a better prognosis than others. Methods We conducted a retrospective epidemiologic study of all patients aged 45 and under ( n  = 73) followed for BC between 2002 and 2007 in two hospitals in the central region in France, compared with patients over 45 years random ( n  = 73). We evaluated the clinical characteristics (sex, smoking habits, WHO status, clinical presentation, histology, TNM stage), the management and prognosis of these patients. Results The median survival of patients aged 45 and under was 13.4 months against 8.9 months for patients over 45 years. In multivariate analysis, age is not an independent prognostic factor ( P  = 0.41) in contrast to the WHO status ( P  = 0.002) and initial TNM stage ( P Conclusion In our study, the better prognosis of the “young” patient group is not directly related to age but in good condition and lower TNM stage of these patients.