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Lung cancer histologic type and family history of cancer
Author(s) -
Sellers Thomas A.,
Elston Robert C.,
Atwood Larry D.,
Rothschild Henry
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.052
H-Index - 304
eISSN - 1097-0142
pISSN - 0008-543X
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0142(19920101)69:1<86::aid-cncr2820690116>3.0.co;2-s
Subject(s) - medicine , family history , adenocarcinoma , cancer , lung cancer , small cell carcinoma , large cell , basal cell , bronchus , pathology , oncology , gastroenterology , respiratory disease , lung
The authors studied 300 patients with pathologically confirmed cancer of the trachea, bronchus, or lung in a 16‐parish (county) area of southern Louisiana. Squamous‐cell carcinoma was observed most frequently among these patients (39.3%), with nearly equal numbers of adenocarcinoma (25.0%) and small cell varieties (25.5%). Patients with large cell cancer, the least frequent type (10.3%), were 4.6 years younger on average than those with small cell (P < 0.05) or squamous cell (P < 0.05) neoplasias. Squamous cell neoplasia was more frequent among men (45.5%) than women (22.0%) (P < 0.05). To assess whether family history differed according to the histologic cell type of the index family member, 248 patients were interviewed with regard to a family history of neoplasia. Those with small cell cancer had the highest family‐size adjusted mean number of lung cancers per family (0.28). This was 2.2 times greater than the mean number of affected persons among relatives of patients with adenocarcinoma and 1.5 times greater than the mean for the families of patients with large or squamous cell types. However, none of these differences was statistically significant. Similar results were obtained when the total number of cancers at all sites was tabulated. Probands with small cell neoplasia were again most likely to have a positive family history, but the differences between histologic types were small. Although these data suggest an association, a larger study sample is required to determine conclusively whether or not a family history of lung cancer differs according to histologic type.