Current Thoracic Surgery 2018 , Vol 3 , Issue 2
Analysis of risk factors in surgical treatment of lung cancer patients over 70 years of age: how effective are the cardiac risk score and age?
Funda İncekara1,Deniz Kaygusuz Tikici1,Selma Mine Kara Apaydın1,Şevki Mustafa Demiröz1,Koray Aydoğdu1,Ebru Sayılır Güven1,Selim Şakir Erkmen Gülhan1,Göktürk Fındık1,Sadi Kaya1
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Ataturk Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Training and Research Hospital, Ankara, Turkey DOI : 10.26663/cts.2018.00011 Viewed : 5919 - Downloaded : 2310 Background: In this study, the age and cardiac risk factors on mortality, and complications after surgical treatment in lung cancer patients were investigated.

Materials and Methods: Between January 2014 and November 2016, 485 patients who underwent lung resections for lung cancer in our clinic, were retrospectively evaluated. Under the age of 70, 412 patients and over 70, 73 patients were grouped as group 1 and 2.

Results: Lobectomy was performed in 333 patients (80.8%), pneumonectomy in 43 (10.4%), bilobectomy in 30 (0.7%), segmentectomy in 3 (0.7%) and sleeve lobectomy in 3 (0.7%) in group 1; lobectomy in 65 (89%), pneumonectomy in 4 (5.4%), and sleeve lobectomy in 4 (5.4%) in group 2. Surgical mortality was observed in 5 patients (1.2%) in group 1 and 6 patients (8.2%) in group 2. Complications were observed in 99 patients (24%) in group 1 and 23 patients (17%) in group 2. The mean expected mortality with cardiac risk score in group 1 was 1.24 and 3.5 in group 2. The expected mortality with cardiac risk score and complication rates were tabulated as low, moderate, high and there was no statistically significant difference between score and complication (p = 0.551).

Conclusions: According to our study, there were no significant differences in terms of complications, morbidity, mortality and survival rates. There was only a relative increase in surgical mortality over the age of 70, so patients should be carefully treated during and after the surgery. Surgery should be the first treatment to perform in selected patients with lung cancer over the age of 70. Keywords : cardiac risk factor, lung cancer, mortality, surgery