PREVIOUS TUMOURS AND LUNG CANCER

Prediction of risk for developing lung cancer is very important and in this issue López-Encuentra and colleagues describe a study evaluating prognostic factors in lung cancer. The study shows that a previous tumour is an independent prognostic factor for lung cancer and the probability of death at 5 years in a patient with a completely resected stage 1 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) increases by 1.5 times. In the accompanying editorial, Toloza discusses these results and concludes that because of the increased risk of also developing a second lung cancer, careful follow up of patients with lung cancer and other malignancies is necessary. …