Context: Hyponatraemia is one of the common electrolytic disorders which are associated with lung cancer. Hyponatraemia may influence the ECOG performance status at presentation. Also, to the best of our knowledge, we found only limited Indian studies where the ECOG score was correlated with the serum sodium status in lung cancer patients on presentation.
Aim:To assess the incidence of hyponatraemia among the patients of carcinoma of the lung before putting them into the specific treatment category for cancer and to check the effects on their ECOG performance status.
Settings and Design:A cross-sectional, observational study was conducted on 116 consecutive patients of lung cancer during the period from November 2011 to October 2012.
Material and Methods:The patients with a histologically proven diagnosis of lung cancer were grouped initially according to their ECOG performance statuses. The serum sodium value of each patient was measured and the hyponatraemic patients were given treatment according to the protocol. The correlation of the ECOG performance status with the serum sodium of the lung cancer patients was measured. To check for any laboratory error in serum sodium, we selected (n = 58) age, sex and socioeconomic matched control patients.Results: At presentation 44.8% of the lung cancer patients showed hyponatraemia [52/116]. The ECOG score was significantly poor in the advanced clinical stages (ECOG ≤2 Vs ECOG ≥ 3 in NSCLC cases, c 2 =11.25, P=.0008). The ECOG performance status score at admission showed a negative correlation with the serum sodium status which was measured on admission among all the patients (Pearson correlation coefficient = -0.186). The clinical stage of the lung cancer also showed a positive correlation with the ECOG score at admission in our study (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.295).
Above mentioned commonly available investigations can ascertain diagnosis in most of the cases in the aetiological evaluation of exudative effusions and they are relatively safe procedures.
A B S T R A C T BACKGROUNDGlobally, an estimated 10.0 million people developed Tuberculosis in 2017. Side effects and toxicity of the first line anti-tubercular drugs were hepatotoxicity, skin rash, and joint pain. If hepatotoxicity develops on reintroduction of treatment with the same regimen, then treatment should be started with hepato-safe regimen. Majority of the reports have used an elevated Alanine Transaminase (ALT) or Aspartate Transaminase (AST) of 3 times upper limit of normal range (ULN) with symptoms attributable to liver injury or 5 times ULN of ALT or AST without symptoms to define hepatotoxicity. Due to paucity of studies regarding adaptive response, this study was conducted to find out the proportion of anti-tubercular drug (ATD) induced hepatitis during Anti-TB treatment and frequency of adaptive changes in Liver Enzymes during the course of anti TB treatment.
RESULTSIn 83.3% patients only SGPT level was elevated, while in 71% SGOT was only elevated. Both SGPT and SGOT were elevated in 66.7% of cases. Only 1.8% cases were observed with elevated SGPT and SGOT on six occasions. Only 16.7% had no elevation in SGPT and 28.9% had no elevation in SGOT. Most of the patients had asymptomatic elevation of liver enzymes and didn't need any treatment interruption. 4.38% patients developed drug induced hepatitis and needed treatment interruption for about two weeks and all were reintroduced with the same regimen successfully.
CONCLUSIONSDrug induced liver function abnormality is a common occurrence during the course of anti-TB treatment. Most patients show tolerance to anti-TB drugs and get adjusted after transient rise in liver enzymes. Concomitant use of hepatotoxic agent should be avoided as far as possible.
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