Fibrobronchoscopic observation of squamous cell carcinoma as the leading subtype in young patients with lung cancer

Objective To study the clinicopathologic characteristics and the features of fibrobronchoscopy in lung cancer patients under 40 years of age. Methods We analysed retrospectively the fibrobronchoscopic data of 142 young lung cancer patients enrolled between July 1981 and October 2002. Results The proportion of young patients with lung cancer in all lung cancer patients was 8.9%,the male /female ratio was 2.6/1. The most frequent histologic types was squamous cell carcinoma (58.2%), followed by small cell carcinoma (23.1%) and adenocarcinoma (18.7%) in 91 young patients with histologically proven lung cancer . Among 142 young lung cancer patients, 83.1% had direct sign, 14.8% had indirect sign, 77.5% showed the positive results by cytology, 64.1% showed the positive pathologic results by bronchos copy, 59.5% were right lung cancer,the most common region was in the double upper lobes. Conclusions Lung cancer in young patients are prone to be misdiagnosed pneumonia or tuberculosis.Therefore,it is necessary to pay more attention to the lung cancer of young patients.