Prevalence of hospitalized women at high-risk for developing lung cancer

ABSTRACT

Background

Lung cancer screening with low-dose computer tomography (CT) has been shown to reduce the lung cancer mortality in high-risk individuals by 20%. Despite the proven mortality benefit, the utilization of lung cancer screening among high-risk populations remains low.

Objective

This study explores the prevalence of high-risk population for developing lung cancer among hospitalized women and evaluates the screening behavior toward other common cancers during a hospital stay.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional study in which 248 cancer-free hospitalized women aged 50–75 years who reported current or prior smoking were enrolled during hospital admission at an academic center. A bedside survey was conducted to collect socio-demographic, cancer screening behavior, and medical comorbidities for the study patients. Unpaired t-test and Chi-square tests were used to compare characteristics and common cancer screening behavior by lung cancer risk stratification.

Results

Forty-three percent of the hospitalized women were at intermediate to high-risk for developing lung cancer risk. Intermediate to high-risk women were more likely to be older, Caucasian, retired, or with a disability, and had higher comorbidity burden as compared to the low-risk group. Women at low and intermediate to high risk were equally non-adherent with breast (35% vs 31%, p = 0.59) and colorectal (32% vs 24%, p = 0.20) cancers screening guidelines. Only 38% of women from the intermediate to the high-risk group had a CT chest within the last year.

Conclusion

The study’s findings suggest that almost half of the hospitalized women who report current or past smoking are at high-risk for developing lung cancer.

KEYWORDS:

• High-risk population
• lung cancer
• hospitalized women
• cancer screening behavior
• captive audiance

Declaration of financial/other relationships

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the Clinical Excellence Interest Group (CEIG), a Johns Hopkins–wide initiative for scholarly collaboration among clinicians to promote clinical excellence and patient-centered care.

Author contributions

Jerome Gnanaraj: study lead resource, performed literature search, participated in elaboration, and writing of the original draft. Sardar H Ijaz: project administration, lead project data collection, supportive for write up, review & editing. Waseem Khaliq: lead conceptualization, lead formal analysis and methodology, and lead writing, review & editing along with first author.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.