[page 14] [Chest Disease Reports 2011; 1:e7] Short-term mortality amongpatients with non–small celllung cancer and respiratoryfailure: a retrospective study

Lung cancer remains the number one cause of malignancy-related mortality in the United States. Identifying risk factors that are predic-tive of short-term mortality among patients with non-small cell lung cancer will allow the patients, their families and health care providers to be better prepared emotionally for the fatal outcome and may attenuate the cost and distress associated with often futile meas-ures. The objective of this study was to meas-ure the 3-month mortality among patients with non-small cell lung cancer who developed res-piratory failure. This retrospective study reviewed the outcome of all patients with inop-erable non-small cell lung cancer who were admitted to our hospital with respiratory fail-ure. Respiratory failure was defined as need for mechanical ventilation, noninvasive venti-lation, or at least 50 % fraction of inspired oxy-gen. Short-term mortality was defined as death in the hospital or within 3 months of dis-charge, as well as discharge to hospice; short-term mortality was found to be 94.4 % in the study population. The prognosis of patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer and respiratory failure is grave. Short-term mortal-ity among this patient population is close to 100%