Source: Annual Congress 2009 - Epidemiology and management of lung cancer
Disease area: Thoracic oncology

Abstract

Introduction: Despite advances in risk factor reduction and improvements in lung cancer treatment, socioeconomic inequalities persist in its incidence and clinical outcome.
Aim: To investigate the socioeconomic characteristics of NSCLC patients and associate them with health care access and clinical outcome.
Materials and methods: Ninty six patients with NSCLC were rectospectively studied regarding their socioeconomic and marital status, education, health care access and treatment. Correlation of all data with staging, treatment and clinical outcome followed.
Results: Thirteen females and 83 males (mean age 61.5 years) were included in our study. 46.9% of patients lived in an urban area and 67.7% were married. The presence of metastasis at diagnosis correlated with the area of residence (OR=2.85, 95% CI:1.2-6.8, p=0.02). Disease stage at diagnosis associated with sex(x²=7.6, p=0.05), area of residence(x²=26.7, p<0.001), marital status(x²=50.68, p<0.001), profession(x²=42.8, p<0.001), educational level(x²=56.8, p<0.001) and health care access(x²=33.48, p<0.001) stating that male patients living in urban areas, married, with a white collar job and high education had better health care access and were diagnosed at primary cancer stages. Among treatment modalities only chemotherapy associated with education(p<0.05).
Conclusions: Socioeconomic health determinants constitute independent prognostic factors affecting health care access and clinical outcome in NSCLC patients, thus accounting for the gap between the most deprived and the most affluent. The implementation of improved social policy measures is needed to ameliorate socioeconomic inequalities affecting health status.

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G. Hardavella, P. Galanis, E. Nasaina, Y. Dalavanga, D. Stefanou, S. Constantopoulos, A. Maina (Athens, Ioannina, Greece; Strasbourg, France). Prognostic impact of socioeconomic status and health care access in non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Eur Respir J 2009; 34: Suppl. 53, 4680

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