New lung cancer research finds half of advanced lung cancer patients receive chemotherapy
Friday, October 1, 2010 - 05:07
in Health & Medicine
For the first time to date, research published in the October edition of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO) sought to determine the use of chemotherapy in a contemporary, diverse non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) population encompassing all patient ages. Prior population-based studies have shown that only 20 to 30 percent of advanced lung cancer patients receive chemotherapy treatment. These studies have previously relied on the Medicare-linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, thus excluding the 30 to 35 percent of lung cancer patients younger than 65 years of age.