Câncer de pulmão: anos potenciais de vida perdidos e qualidade de vida

Abstract

Based on a World Health Organization document, cancer was considered a public health problem, with an estimated 20 million new cases by 2025. In developing countries, the scenario is more worrying, where 80% of these new cases. Among the most incidental types of cancer, the most common is the lung cancer, with great morbidity and mortality. This dissertation had as its theme "lung cancer", with the objective of analyzing the years of potential life lost among patients with the disease and to explore the current knowledge about quality of life of affected patients. For each objective, a different method was used, with results and conclusions presented below. In order to attend to the first one, cross-sectional analytical research was carried out using data from health records of patients from an oncological center accredited by the Unified Health System, located in Montes Claros, MG, Brazil. Demographic, clinical, and lifestyle data were collected from 2011 to 2017. The years of potential life lost were estimated by the difference between age of death and life expectancy, and the analysis was performed by comparing other variables, with a significance level of 5%, in the IBM® SPSS version 22.0 program. The study involved records of 158 patients, most of whom were males and smokers. Years of potential life lost was calculated for 34 patients with death between 40 and 74 years of age. The loss varied from 0.9 to 39.1 years, with a higher mean among women. There was no difference in the mean number of years lost according to family history of cancer, smoking, alcohol consumption, histological type, disease staging and type of initial treatment proposed. It was concluded that the disease caused losses of life years, up to four decades, which reinforces the severity of the disease and the late diagnosis. It is necessary to invest in actions that can change this scenario, including disease tracking programs and education on the harmful effects of tobacco. In order to reach the second objective, a scoping review was carried out. The search was carried out in the bases of the Virtual Health Library, with the descriptors: "quality of life" and "patients with lung cancer", without limits for year and language. A total of 131 references were found and, after use of exclusion and inclusion criteria, 15 publications remained between 2006 and 2017, the majority (n = 9) of cross-sectional design. Eight different instruments were used to evaluate quality of life, with emphasis on the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer - Quality of Life Questionnaire, a specific questionnaire for lung cancer, adopted in six articles. Prospective studies (n = 6) assessed quality of life before and after chemotherapy, physiotherapy or pulmonary resection and presented conflicting results in different domains of quality of life. Crosssectional studies with comparative healthy subjects had lower quality of life for those with lung cancer. Scoping review has synthesized publications on quality of life among people with lung cancer. Methodological diversity was observed regarding the instruments used and the steps of data collection, which makes it difficult to compare results between the studies.