Completing the Puzzle: Determinants, Comorbidities and Complications for Different Lung Cancer Subtypes: A Pilot Study.

Background: Lung cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide, with multiple independent risk factors contributing to its development. The objective of this study was represented by the impact of independent risk factors, such as smoking, anemia, cachexia or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) for lung cancer development.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study, and we analyzed a database of 412 patients hospitalized between 1 February and 31 December 2023 in the Pulmonology Department of the Mureș County Clinical Hospital. Following the analysis of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the final analyzed group included 115 patients.

Results: From the study group, 88 patients were diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer and 27 with small cell lung cancer. Of the non-small cell lung cancer patients, 50% had adenocarcinoma and 50% had squamous cell carcinoma. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cardiovascular diseases predominate as concomitant pathologies, with 82 and 81 cases identified among the patients evaluated, respectively. The incidence of diabetes mellitus was n = 20 for the patients, followed by asthma and other neoplasms. The body mass index was also analyzed with an average of 24.6. Body mass index does not correlate with histological type. The mean hemoglobin value in the group of patients was 12.8, and this could not be correlated with the histopathological type.

Conclusions: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer may just be two different clinical presentations based on the same etiological factors, which also have a lot of overlapping pathophysiological mechanisms. Therefore, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease represents an individual risk factor for developing lung cancer. Smoking, as well as anemia, cachexia or other comorbidities (COPD), are individual risk factors for lung cancer.