The Spanish Data Base for the Staging of Lung Cancer. Experience of the Bronchogenic Carcinoma Cooperative Group of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (GCCB-S)

Abstract

The Bronchogenic Carcinoma Cooperative Group of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (GCCB-S) has been enrolled in a prospective data collection project from patients with bronchogenic carcinoma who underwent thoracotomy in 20 Spanish hospitals from October 1993 to September 1997. In this 4-year period, 2995 patients were registered and demographic, clinical, biological, diagnostic, surgical, pathological and follow-up information collected in a homogeneous way. The main objectives of the Group are to describe the population with lung cancer at the time of diagnosis in Spain; to analyse operative morbimortality; and to identify multiple prognostic factors. So far, some preliminary results have already been published concerning the description of the population, the methodology of the Group, the assessment of morbi-mortality, and the validation of the 1997 TNM classification.