Long-term survivors of advanced and metastatic lung cancer

The overall prognosis in patients with advanced and metastatic lung cancer is poor, however a subset of these patients has durable survival and they are called long-term survivors (LS). The definition of LS varies in published series from 18 months to 5 years. Few studies have focused on them. We report six cases of LS patients: three cases of non-small- cell lung cancer (stage IIIB and stage IV), two case of small cell lung cancer, and a case of composite carcinoma (small cell carcinoma and squamous carcinoma), all having a survival of five years or more. Our patients show clinical and evolutionary similarities with LS in the literature regarding the prognostic factors associated with prolonged survival namely performance status and good response to first-line chemotherapy.