WOMEN WITH NSCLC LIVE LONGER

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Apr 08 - Pooled data on more than 1300 patients with nonoperable small-cell lung cancer indicate that gender is the most significant factor influencing survival, researchers report.

Dr. Benjamin Movsas of the Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, and colleagues analyzed 2-year overall survival data on 1365 patients treated in 9 prospective trials in the 1990s. All received radiotherapy alone or in combination with chemotherapy. None had surgery.

In Cox proportional hazard regression models, men had significantly higher mortality than women (hazard ratio, 1.22).

Comparing subgroups for overall survival, the authors found adjusted hazard ratios of 0.72 for single males vs single females, 0.85 for single males vs married females, and 0.86 for married males vs married females.

"Both married and single males had inferior outcomes when compared with married females, underscoring the fact that gender was the primary determinant of outcome," the researchers write in a March 20th online report in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Dr. Movsas commented to Reuters Health by mail, "Although race and marital status contribute to the overall prognostic picture, this study demonstrated that gender is by far the most important predictor of survival among patients with nonoperative non-small cell lung cancer."

Race and marital status did not significantly affect the results in this study, but the number of nonwhite patients might have been too small to show an impact of race, the authors said.

Dr. Movsas concluded, "Further studies are needed to better understand why women in this setting have a better prognosis than men in order to improve the outcomes for all patients with this devastating disease."

J Thorac Oncol 2010.