Five years managing metastatic non‐small cell lung cancer: experience at a teaching hospital

Abstract

The present audit demonstrates some shortfalls in the optimal clinical care of patients with metastatic NSCLC at a large teaching hospital. The main selection criteria of consideration for chemotherapy are age, performance status and presence of symptoms. A subset of patients was not referred to either the Medical Oncology Unit or the Palliative Care Unit and consistency in the choice of chemotherapy was lacking. Survival data and the rate of patients entered onto clinical trials are acceptable; however, further improvements can be made by the institution of multidisciplinary clinics and the education of referring clinicians.

Systematic review of multidisciplinary teams in the management of lung cancer

“…The eight other studies [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] were case series or audits, without a comparator group, although some of these did compare their outcomes to national benchmarks [16][17][18][19]21]. The participants were all lung cancer cases [16,18,19,[21][22][23] NSCLC [17], or metastatic NSCLC [20].…”

“…There were 16 studies [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] that met the criteria for inclusion and these were published between 1994 and July 2007. MD team working is a relatively new concept in the management of lung cancer patients, so it was not surprising that there were no published studies before 1994.…”

“…The participants were all lung cancer cases [16,18,19,[21][22][23] NSCLC [17], or metastatic NSCLC [20].…”

The heart, beating or not!

“…In these days of compressed language in medical writing and the definition of disorders by what they are not, good grammar and punctuation are even more important to make sense of strings of words. In the August 2004 edition of the Internal Medicine Journal we read of ‘non‐small cell carcinoma of the lung’, appropriately defining the cells as ‘other than small’ 1 . Alas, we also read an article entitled ‘Non‐heart beating organ donation’ (pp.…”

“…In the August 2004 edition of the Internal Medicine Journal we read of 'non-small cell carcinoma of the lung', appropriately defining the cells as 'other than small'. 1 Alas, we also read an article entitled 'Non-heart beating organ donation' (pp. 501-3).…”