Objectives: Lung cancer is also a serious public health problem worldwide in terms of morbidity and mortality. The aim of our research was to determine patient delay and medical delay among patiens diagnosed with lung cancer.

Methods: The retrospective study was carried out at the Veszprém County Lung Medical Institute, in Hungary between 01.01.2020-31.12.2020 among patients with primary lung cancer (n=171). We performed medical record analysis: age, gender, smoking habits, symptoms, patient delay (the time from the first symptom to the first medical visit), dianostic tests, medical delay (the time from the first visit to diagnosis and the time from diagnosis to treament), histological result and cancer stage. In addition to the descriptive statistical analysis χ²-test, ANOVA and Independent samples t-test were applied (p<0.05) with SPSS software.

Results: The mean age was 66.9±8.2 years, 109 men and 62 women. Main symptoms were cough (38.46%), haemoptysis (16.9%), asphyxia (23.8%) and weight-loss (31.5%). The mean of patient delay was 37.3±49.9 days. Including complainant cases, the average delay was 49.09 days. The delay was significantly (p=0.020) longer in men (39.64 days) than in women (33.24 days). The diagnostic delay was 48.6±40.4 days. In case of patient visiting GP for the first time, the delay was 55.15, in case of dispensary was 57.76 days, and emergency ward was 32.95 days. The majority of patients (33.9%) were at stage IV B and stage IV A (25.1%) diagnosis. The therapeutic dealy was 17.6±19 days, the mean was 13.87 days for systemic treatment, 40.35 days for operable evenings (31 subjects), and 21 days for radiotherapy (20 subjects).

Conclusions: The time period when patients visit the doctor with a complaint, it is shorter than the time required to make a diagnosis and start therapy. This difference may be due to significant health reorganizations because of the pandemic.