PREVALENCE AND PROGNOSTIC-SIGNIFICANCE OF PROTEINURIA IN PATIENTS WITH LUNG-CANCER

The purpose of the present study was to ascertain the prevalence and p rognostic significance of proteinuria in patients with lung cancer, Re sults of urinary dipstick testing were retrospectively reviewed in 102 6 consecutive out-patients with histologically proven primary lung can cer and 475 consecutive out-patients with benign pulmonary disorders, Postoperative urinary dipstick test results were recorded in 243 surgi cally resected patients, Proteinuria was significantly more frequent i n patients with lung cancer than in controls (30.1% vs 8.8%, p < 0.000 1), The presence of proteinuria was significantly correlated with adva nced disease stage (p < 0.0001). The frequency of proteinuria was sign ificantly higher in patients with small cell carcinoma than in patient s with other histologic types (p < 0.01), In the surgically resected p atients, preoperative and postresection proteinuria occurred in 25.5% and 10.7% respectively (p < 0.0001), Patients with malignancies and pr oteinuria had significantly poorer survival than patients with normal urinary protein excretion (p < 0.0001), In a multivariate analysis inc luding TNM stage, histologic type, sex, and age, proteinuria continued to be a significant predictor of reduced survival time, Our results s uggest a high prevalence of increased urinary protein excretion in pat ients with primary lung cancer, Proteinuria may also be an independent predictor of poor survival.