Is there a subgroup of long-term evolution among patients with advanced lung cancer?: Hints from the analysis of survival curves from cancer registry data

BMC Cancer

Lizet Sanchez²  Patricia Lorenzo-Luaces²  Carmen Viada²  Yaima Galan³  Javier Ballesteros¹  Tania Crombet⁵  Agustin Lage⁴ 

[1] University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, and CIBERSAM, Barrio Sarriena s/n, Leioa 48940, Spain

[2] Clinical Research Division, Center of Molecular Immunology, Calle 216 esq 15, Atabey, Havana 11600, Cuba

[3] National Cancer Registry, 29 y F, vedado, Havana 10400, CUBA

[4] Center of Molecular Immunology, Calle 216 esq 15, Atabey, Havana 11600, Cuba

[5] Clinical Research Direction, Center of Molecular Immunology, Calle 216 esq 15, Atabey, Havana 11600, Cuba

关键词: Non-small-cell lung cancer;    Mixture models;    Survival;    Long-term survivors;   

Others  :  1117911
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-14-933

 received in 2014-04-19, accepted in 2014-11-20,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Recently, with the access of low toxicity biological and targeted therapies, evidence of the existence of a long-term survival subpopulation of cancer patients is appearing. We have studied an unselected population with advanced lung cancer to look for evidence of multimodality in survival distribution, and estimate the proportion of long-term survivors.

Methods

We used survival data of 4944 patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) stages IIIb–IV at diagnostic, registered in the National Cancer Registry of Cuba (NCRC) between January 1998 and December 2006. We fitted one-component survival model and two-component mixture models to identify short- and long- term survivors. Bayesian information criterion was used for model selection.

Results

For all of the selected parametric distributions the two components model presented the best fit. The population with short-term survival (almost 4 months median survival) represented 64% of patients. The population of long-term survival included 35% of patients, and showed a median survival around 12 months. None of the patients of short-term survival was still alive at month 24, while 10% of the patients of long-term survival died afterwards.

Conclusions

There is a subgroup showing long-term evolution among patients with advanced lung cancer. As survival rates continue to improve with the new generation of therapies, prognostic models considering short- and long-term survival subpopulations should be considered in clinical research.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Sanchez et al.; licensee BioMed Central.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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