Patients with bladder and lung cancer: a long-term outcome analysis.

OBJECTIVES To report on patient characteristics, stage of disease and long-term outcome and prognosis of patients with dual bladder and lung cancers, as there is an established increased risk of smoking-related second primary cancers, especially lung cancer, developing in patients with bladder cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS We reviewed our hospital tumour registry database from 1990 to 2002, and identified 27 patients who had both bladder and lung cancers among 1038 with bladder cancer and 2427 with lung cancer. Seventeen patients had bladder cancer detected before lung cancer (group 1), and the remaining 10 had lung cancer diagnosed first (group 2). RESULTS Group 1 and 2 were comparable in terms of patients’ characteristics, mean interval between cancer detection and their use of tobacco. Group 1 patients had a tendency towards more invasive lung cancer at diagnosis than had group 2 patients (11/17 vs 2/10 stage ≥ IIB, respectively; P = 0.082). The mean follow-up was 49.8 and 64.5 months for groups 1 and 2, respectively (not significant). The mean (sd) interval to death from the date of diagnosis of lung cancer was 18 (17) months for group 1 and 65 (42) months for group 2 (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Patients with bladder and lung cancer who have lung cancer detected first have a lower lung cancer stage and higher overall survival rate than patients diagnosed with bladder cancer first.