Stage I lung cancer patients with or without symptoms - are the patients different and should we treat them differently?

Introduction: A large proportion of stage I cancers are found incidentally, which appears to be a prognostic factor. We investigated stage I lung cancers according to whether, or not, there had been clinical suspicion of lung cancer prior to referral and to see, if we could detect any difference regarding patient characteristics, work-up and mortality for incidental vs non-incidental findings as well as for asymptomatic vs symptomatic patients.

Methods: Medical records and referral documents for 177 patients diagnosed with stage I lung cancer were reviewed and divided based on whether the initial CT scan leading to diagnosis had been made due to suspicion of lung cancer or not.