Abstract: Background and purpose: The morbidity and mortality of lung cancer are currently the highest malignant tumor in China and the world. Most onset age of the illness is after 60 years old. Therefore, surgical resection of lung cancer in the elderly is very worthy of concern. This study aimed to investigate the clinical features, epidemic characteristics and conditions in perioperative period between the elderly and middle-aged patients with lung cancer, and provide the reference for clinical treatment. Methods: Totally 1 019 patients with lung cancer who were admitted to the hospital and accepted the operations in department of thoracic surgery in Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital from Jan. 2007 to Dec. 2012 were analysed retrospectively. The clinical data including gender, pathological type, TNM stage, intraoperative amount of bleeding and post-operative length of hospitalization were compared. Results: There was a significant difference in sexual factors between these two groups (P˂0.05), and compared with the middle-aged group, the proportion of male was more higher in the elderly group (76.91% vs 52.81%). Adenocarcinoma was the most common and squamous carcinoma was the next in both two groups. The constituent ratio of the pathlogical type between the elderly group and the middle-aged group was statistically significant (P˂0.05). The squamous carcinoma in the elderly group was higher than that in the middle-aged group (37.5% vs 15.6%). On the contrary, adenocarcinoma was more common in the middle-aged group (72.8% vs 50.7%). StagesⅡa, Ⅱb, and Ⅲa were more common in the elderly group and stagesⅠa, and Ⅰb were the most clinical stage in the middle-aged group. The clinical stage between two groups was statistically significant (P˂0.05).The intraoperative amount of bleeding was higher and the postoperative length of hospitalization was longer in the elderly group, with a significant difference as compared with that in the middle-aged group(P˂0.05). And there was a significant difference in incidence of accompanying diseases between the two groups, compared with the middle-aged group, the proportion of accompanying diseases was more higher in the elderly group(58.6% vs 42.3%). Conclusion: Elderly patients with lung cancer are more common in males, with adenocarcinoma being the most common. The cancer mostly belongs to a medium or advanced stage. Elderly patients have the trend with more amount of bleeding in operation and lengh of stay.

Key words: Lung cancer, The elderly, Clinical characteristic