Nensi Lalic

Clinical risk factors for early complications after high-dose-rate endobronchial brachytherapy in the palliative treatment of lung cancer.

PURPOSE This study sought to identify the rate of complications and clinical risk factors for early complications of high-dose-rate endobronchial brachytherapy (HDR-EBBT). The identification of these risk factors could result in a decrease or avoidance of complications. PATIENTS AND METHODS We analyzed risk factors for complications in 761 patients with advanced-stage lung cancer who were treated with HDR-EBBT as a part of the multimodality therapy. We reviewed patient, radiology, and bronchology charts for complications of HDR-EBBT. Complications were defined as severe hypoxemia, global respiratory failure, cardiac arrhythmia requiring additional treatment, hemoptysis, pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum, pulmonary edema, tracheoesophageal fistulae, and death. Risk factors were defined as acute myocardial infarction > or = 6 months previously, stabilized hypertension, arrhythmia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stabilized cardiomyopathy, previous external-beam radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and interventional pulmonology treatment. Age, sex, tumor histology, and tumor localization were also subjected to multivariate analyses. RESULTS The rate of complications was 5.4%. Statistically significant (P = .001) risk factors for complications of HDR-EBBT included stabilized hypertension, controlled chronic cardiac arrhythmias, COPD, and stabilized cardiomyopathy. We found a significant correlation between age and number of risk factors, and the occurrence of complications (P = .001). CONCLUSION Our results indicate that closer monitoring of patients with identified risk factors is advisable. Such monitoring should be performed both before and after treatment, to avoid complications.

AB 95. Changing pattern of lung cancer

Lung cancer is not any more on the first place regarding incidence in some countries among malignant diseases, but is still the leading cause of death. Also, it is notable that incidence of lung cancer among men in some West European and Scandinavian countries is decreasing. Unfortunately, in other countries, especially in Southeast European countries, age-adjusted rate for men is still increasing, or at least, has been reached a plateau. Even worse situation is among female in this region, with constant incidence increase. The proportion of adenocarcinoma has been increasing over time. In Vojvodina, the northern part of Serbia, all of this mentioned changes has been noticed: adenocarcinoma is leading type of lung cancer nowadays, overcoming squamous cell carcinoma also among men, number of lung cancer among female is increasing, reaching the rate men to women 2.7:1, the number of nonsmokers is slightly increasing among male patients with adenocarcinoma, and notable among female patients with adenocarcinoma. Despite improvement in both the diagnosis and treatment, the overall survival for lung cancer patients hardly improved over time. The introduction of personalized and targeted treatment showed some modest results giving a hope that this way of treatment could bring better results in future. In conclusion: it could be emphasized that the epidemic of lung cancer is not over yet, especially in southern and eastern Europe. Rates of all lung cancer types among women and adenocarcinoma among men continue to rise. The number of nonsmokers among patients with adenocarcinoma continues to increase.

AB 10. Relation between histological types of lung cancer and vascular patterns visualized by narrow band imaging (NBI) videobronchoscopy

Background Narrow Band Imaging (NBI) videobronchoscopy is a new technique for visualization of microvascular changes in bronchial mucosa. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate relation between vascular patterns visualized by NBI and histology of lung cancer.