AGE AND PROGNOSIS OF NONSMALL CELL LUNG-CANCER - USEFULNESS OF A RELATIVE SURVIVAL MODEL

The aim of our study was the comparative evaluation of a relative surv ival model and a Cox model to determine the prognostic factors of surv ival for patients with surgically cured non-small cell lung cancer (NS CLC). We focused particularly on the exact role of age in this surviva l. 156 patients treated between 1975 and 1988 were studied. Both univa riate and multivariate analyses were performed, using the actuarial me thod and the Cox model for crude survival and the Hakulinen model for relative survival. This study confirmed the poor prognosis of NSCLC, e ven if a curative surgical procedure has been possible, with a 5-year survival of 48% for stage I tumours but only 6% for stage III tumours. The most significant prognostic factor was the postsurgical TNM stagi ng. The relative survival method of Hakulinen dismissed age as a signi ficant prognostic factor. Our study underlines the usefulness of relat ive survival methods which should be more frequently employed to allow comparisons between series of different origin and to set up multicen tre therapeutic trials.