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Lung cancer is responsible for 1.3 million deaths worldwide annually, and it is the most common cause of cancer-related death in men and the second most common in women. Lung cancer staging is the assessment of the degree to which a lung cancer has spread from its original source. As with most cancers, for lung cancer staging is of paramount impor‐ tance for the treatment planning process and prognosis. Two primary methods of lung can‐ cer staging are available: clinical staging and pathologic staging. In clinical staging, information is provided by noninvasive or minimally invasive techniques, such as physical examination, radiologic examination, endoscopic ultrasound, bronchoscopy, mediastinosco‐ py, and thoracoscopy. In pathologic staging, information obtained from clinical staging is combined with findings from both the invasive surgical procedure and the pathologic evalu‐ ation of excised tissue. Clinical staging is important and can help to determine the next ap‐ propriate step in therapy, such as the decision to proceed with pathologic staging, which remains the reference standard because the overall level of agreement between the two sys‐ tems only ranges from 35% to 55% [1]. |
