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Lung cancer is the most common and fatal type of cancer in Albania. Still nowadays a high percentage of patients are diagnosed at advanced stage. This is a descriptive analysis that aim to describe the treatment of stage III NSCLC in real practice in a developing country.

From 2016 until 2019, 620 lung cancer patients are treated at the department of Oncology of University Hospital Mother Theresa. From them 248 patients (40%) were diagnosed with stage III NSCLC. The majority of this category of patients (80%) aged between 56-75 years and only 20% were between 35-55 years. Most of them 83% were men and 17% women. 44% of patients were diagnosed with stage IIIA, 46% with stage IIIB and 10% with stage IIIC. Squamous cell carcinoma dominated in 58% of patients, adenocarcinoma in 35% and no specification in 8%.

Treatment of our patients was heterogeneous. Only 17% of them underwent surgery, from which 14% had stage IIIA and 3% St IIIB. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy was applied in 30% of patients (12.5% St IIIA, 16.5% St IIIB, 1% St IIIC). Only 2 patients were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy after surgery and they had stage IIIA. Sequential chemoradiotherapy was used in 16% of patients. Only with chemotherapy were treated 26% of patients and with only radiotherapy 5%. Palliative treatment was prescribed in 6% of patients regardless of age. No immunotherapy treatment is approved for unresectable stage III NSCLC.

In our daily practice the use of concurrent chemoradiotherapy for treatment of stage III NSCLC is not yet optimal. It reflects the lack of a decision-making by a multidisciplinary team. According to this analysis, treatment of stage III NSCLC should to be improved and based on clinical guidelines.