ABSTRACT
To explore the relationship between cancer awareness and the survival of the patients with non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). Methods: A total of 865 NSCLC patients were screened for the risk factors, including age, gender, address, tumor/lymph nodes/metastasis (TNM) stage, and cancer awareness. Survival of the patients was calculated by Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression analysis. Results: After an average observation time of 304 d (ranging from 0 to 4 718 d), 62 of the 394 patients in the cancer awareness group survived, whereas 26 of the 471 patients in the cancer concealment group survived. Cancer-specific and all-cause survival was poorer in the cancer concealment group (P<0.001 for each, log-rank test). Cox multivariate regression analysis showed that cancer concealment displayed significantly lower cancer-specific survival [hazard ratio (HR)=1.534, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.320 to 1.784, P<0.001] and all-cause survival (HR=1.558, 95% CI 1.346 to 1.803, P<0.001). Conclusion: Cancer concealment is associated with a poor survival of NSCLC patients, which may prohibit the patients from obtaining the real "right to survival".