Lung Cancer: Staging

Lung cancer staging is a process used to assess the extent of spread of lung cancer, determine the most appropriate treatment and predict the patient’s prognosis. Clinical staging is performed prior to surgical resection, while surgical-pathologic staging is based on histologic analysis of the resected tumor and lymph nodes. Restaging is performed following treatment. Staging is based on the TNM classification system. T refers to the primary tumor, N to thoracic lymph node involvement and M to metastatic disease. Recent changes to T and M descriptors were made to better reflect actual survival. For the majority of non-small cell lung cancers, the presence or absence of mediastinal lymph node spread is the most important outcome predictor. Although no changes were made to the N descriptor, the actual intrathoracic lymph node stations were recently clarified. Although the majority of small cell lung cancers are metastatic at the time of presentation, the presence of limited versus extensive spread of disease determines treatment options. However, the overall prognosis and survival for affected patients is poor. TNM staging is now recommended for carcinoid tumors as well as small cell lung cancer.