Clinical and Epidemiological Study on Lung Cancer : Statistical Survey of Patients in a Hospital

An epidemiological study was done on the records of the sixty-one patients with lung cancer registered in a certain hospital in 1980. The results obtained are as follows : 1) There were forty male patients, most of whom being between seventy and seventy-nine years old, while female patients were twenty-one in number, who were in most cases between sixty and sixty-nine. It was noticeable that the ratio of male patients increases according as the age goes up. 2) Out of the total, twelve patients (19.7%) had the family history, and four (6.6%) had the past history, of cancer. 3) Thirteen patients (21.3%) were detected by the mass examination, and six (42.6%) of them proved to be in stage I of the clinical classification of the Japan Lung Cancer Society. The ratio of stage I in the mass examination group was significantly higher than that in the non-mass examination group. 4) Relative risk of men over sixty years old who smoke more than twenty cigarettes a day to those who smoke less than twenty amounted to 16.5.