New York: Air pollution may shorten survival chances in patients with lung cancer detected at an early stage of the disease, particularly adenocarcinoma, according to a study.
Adenocarcinoma is the most common type of non-small cell lung cancer, which accounts for 80 per cent of lung cancer cases. Air pollution has been linked to a higher incidence of lung cancer and death, but little is known about its potential impact on an individual’s chances of survival after diagnosis.To clarify this, the researchers tracked the health outcomes of more than 3,52,000 people newly diagnosed with lung cancer with an average age of 69.
More than half (53 per cent) of the cancers were diagnosed at an advanced stage (distant spread) and the average survival time for early stage disease was 3.6 years.
For patients with early stage disease, average survival time was shortest for those with small and large cell cancers (around 1.5 years) and longest for those with adenocarcinoma (around 5 years).
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