According to Global Cancer Statistics 2020, cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer death in women [1]. Statistics show that the number of new cases in 2020 reached 604,000, and most of them were diagnosed in places with relatively poor economic conditions [1]. Most cases of cervical cancer result from high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, but there are also some important cofactors, such as smoking and long-term use of oral contraceptives [2]. In the early stages of cervical cancer, patients are usually asymptomatic [3]. Although cervical cancer screening helps to identify these early patients, about 13% of patients are at an advanced stage at first diagnosis and many of them have distant metastasis [3,4].

Compared with lymphatic metastasis, hematogenous metastasis of cervical cancer is related to poorer prognosis, and a study showed that more than 60% of patients with hematogenous metastasis died within 1 year [4]. In hematogenous metastasis, lung is the most common target organ [4]. It was reported that lung metastasis occupied 2.1-6.1% of patients with cervical cancer [5]. However, most cervical cancer patients with lung metastasis show symptoms that are non-specific such as dry cough and dyspnea, and some patients are asymptomatic at the time of primary diagnosis [6]. The metastatic lesions in the lungs are usually detected by chest X-ray or pelvic computed tomography (CT) [7]. For these patients, there is no unified treatment standard at present, and the effects of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy are not satisfactory [8].

Although several studies on cervical cancer with lung metastasis have been conducted, the epidemiology and signatures are still unclear [6,8]. Therefore, we used the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to explore the epidemiological characteristics, find out the possible prognostic factors and predict the survival time of patients initially diagnosed with cervical cancer with lung metastasis comprehensively.