lung cancer occurrence in southern iran

background: lung cancer is one of the fatal cancers in iran while 12% of the mortalities are related to this cancer in the country. this active hospital-based study was undertaken to determine the occurrence of lung cancer in fars province, southern iran. methods: data including face-to-face interview with patients and a survey of their medical and demographic records in relation to all invasive cancers were actively collected from 2002 to 2007 from four university hospitals. results: among 10800 cancer cases registered during this period, 238 cases were lung cancer, including 76.1% male and 23.9% female patients. 66.1% of the lung cancer cases were smokers. the mean age at the time of diagnosis was 58.3 years which was higher in males compared to females (pv<0.001). there were also more smokers among males than females (74.6% vs 38.7%, pv<0.001). the most common histological type of lung cancer was squamous cell carcinoma followed by adenocarcinoma. conclusion: our results showed a higher prevalence of lung cancer in males, age group of 46-65, smokers and moderate and low socioeconomic classes while the most common type was squamous cell carcinoma. it seems that these findings may play a key role for authorities in health planning programs.