Objectives:

to describe the demographic and histopathologic characteristics, tumor molecular biology and staging of patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated between December 2013 and December 2018 at the National Cancer Institute of Colombia.

Methods:

a retrospective cohort study based on data from medical records.

Results:

392 patients with non-small cell lung cancer were included. The median age was 65.9 years (range: 28.9 to 88.9 years); 198 (50.5%) patients were women, obtaining a 1:1 male-female ratio. 90.6% of the cases were older than 50 years. History of smoking occurred in 211 patients (53.8%), 75.8% of the male population and 32.3% of the female population were smokers. Adenocarcinoma was found in 293 (74.7%) patients, while squamous cell carcinoma was present in 73 (18.6%) patients. The pathological staging was: 22 (5.6%) patients were in stage I, 18 (4.6%) had stage II, 40 (10.2%) patients were in stage III, stage IV was found in 311 (79.3%) patients, and there was no data in one patient. EGFR mutation was detected in 21.2% of patients. ALK rearrangements were identified in 4.6% of patients and PDL-1 was only found in 9% of the population.

Conclusions:

this study presents a general panorama of non-small cell lung cancer in the Colombian population, where most patients are diagnosed in advanced stages of the disease, and highlights the need for new strategies for early detection and better access for patients with lung cancer.

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