Effect of gender on the prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer / 中华流行病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze the effect of gender on the prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).Methods Data of 1 195 patients with NSCLC were analyzed by Chi-square,Kaplan-Meier,log-rank tests and Cox regression models.Results Women had a longer survival than men (median overall survival 31.64 versus 22.71 months,P＜0.01) in the participants of this study.Differences seen in overall survival remained the similar,after stratified by age,pathologic types,clinical stage,sizes,pleural effusion and surgery of the patients,respectively.Data from the multivariate analysis revealed that factors as smoking,clinical stage,metastatic when diagnosis was made and surgery,but not gender,were independent prognostic factors for patients with NSCLC.After adjustment for potential confounders,we found that smoking was a major confounding factor,affecting the relationship between gender and prognosis of NSCLC.Conclusion Gender did not seem an independent prognostic factor for NSCLC patients while the survival advantages of females might be attributed to the lower prevalence of smoking in this population.