Bronchogenic Carcinoma in Patients Younger Than 40 Years

Abstract

background: lung cancer is the most frequent cancer related cause of death for both gender, currently 10 millions new lung cancer are diagnosed each year worldwide. Objective: To determine the different clinical characteristics and other features of lung cancer in the different age groups. Methodology: This was descriptive retrospective study carried on 32 patients with histological proven lung cancer under the age of 40 years from three medical centers. All patients underwent full clinical assessment including history (particularly smoking) and full physical examination Bronchoscope was done to all patients except those unfit pleural effusion cytology and pleural biopsy done to all patients with pleural effusion. FNA Cytology done under ultrasound guide and was of great help in those patient in whom the histological diagnosis was difficult to be obtained by other methods. Results: The age of studied group ranged between (10_40 years) with a mean of 25. From the thirty two patients, there were 18 males patients (56%) and 14 females patients (44%), with 1.3:1 male: female ratio. History of smoking in the young age group was present in19 patients (60%), 13 were males (68.5%) and 6 patients (31%) were females, and 13 patients (40%) never smoked .Undifferentiated carcinoma is much more common in males than females (20% and 8% respectively). The most common histological types of lung cancer in both sex of young group was adenocarcinoma (44% of cases) occurring 50% of females and 40% of male. Conclusion: Cigarette smoking is an important cause of the current epidemic of lung cancer among our young patients, so it is preventable rather than curable medical problem. Adenocarcinoma was the most frequent histological type of lung cancer in Iraqi young patients.