%0 Journal Article
%T A Six-Month Study of Pulmonary Cancer in Albanian Women
%A Jolanda Nikolla
%A Milda Nanushi
%A Gentian Vyshka
%A Hasan Hafizi
%J ISRN Preventive Medicine
%D 2013
%R 10.5402/2013/824670
%X Lung cancer is a potentially lethal disease, whose prevalence in Albania is constantly increasing, especially in women. Early diagnosis is extremely important with regard to life expectancy and quality. The authors conducted a survey on the behaviour in a sample group of Albanian women diagnosed with primary and secondary lung cancers. A discussion upon diagnostic methods, smoking habits, histological type, Karnofsky performance status (KPS), and treatment modalities is made. The data collected by the authors suggest that nonsmokers formed the main group of lung cancer female patients. The most frequent histological type was adenocarcinoma. Mesothelioma was the most frequent of the secondary pulmonary lung cancers, followed from metastasizing breast cancer. Despite a generally good performance of the cases, the diagnosis of pulmonary cancer is delayed. The data collected could not find a convincing etiological role of tobacco smoking, but caution is needed, regarding the short time length of the study and the sustained number of participants. 1. Introduction The incidence of lung cancer is constantly increasing, and this is a phenomenology that has raised concerns since decades, mostly important, because the disease has changed its manifesting modalities, and even the histological profile has undergone modifications [1¨C3]. On the other hand, if previously the age-specific parameter regarded mainly older patients, actually the trend of having more and more younger patients with lung cancer and with females suffering increasingly from the latter, is unrelenting [4]. Tobacco smoking habits have been accused to play a direct role in the fact that females are manifesting increasingly a higher incidence of lung cancer, although conclusions hardly converge [5¨C7]. Albeit that numerous professional settings have been related to higher incidence of lung cancer, tobacco smoking still remains the mostly discussed factor. It seems nevertheless that several years of exposure to active or passive smoking are necessary before modifications of the bronchial mucosa can be detected. Furthermore, correlating the manifestation of the adenocarcinoma of the lung with tobacco smoking has been continuously an issue of controversy, although recent and more large studies have still found a relation, but rather a smaller one, when compared with other histological types of lung cancer [8, 9]. In the present study, the authors have tried to describe the behaviour of a sample group of 54 Albanian females suffering from lung cancer and recruited for a diagnostic and therapeutic
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.preventive.medicine/2013/824670/