Algunos datos demográficos del cáncer broncogénico en el Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias, 1984-2003

background: incidence and histology of lung cancer have changed. this paper brings up to date some demographic information of lung cancer at the instituto nacional de enfermedades respiratorias in mexico city, a national referral center, during a 20 year period. material and methods: review of clinical charts, images and histology of hospitalized patients with lung cancer from january 1°, 1984 to december 31, 2003. results: there were 3,628 patients with lung cancer, 77.83% male and 22.17% female; 68.87% of cases occurred in the right lung and 31.17% in the left lung; tumors were more common in the upper lobes, 77.82% in the right upper lobe and 80.18% in the left upper lobe. the most frequent histological type was adenocarcinoma in 68.6%, followed by squamous cell in 26.09% and small cell carcinoma in 5.31% of the cases. discussion: compared to other national series, a) the high frequency in males, almost 4 to 1, b) right sided location, over 2 to 1, and c) predominance of adenocarcinoma, over two thirds of the total, stand out