This week's artwork was donated by Jaclyn, a pediatric cancer patient who received treatment at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . Since determination of stage has important therapeutic and prognostic implications, careful initial diagnostic evaluation to define location and extent of primary and metastatic tumor involvement is critical for the appropriate care of patients.
Stage has a critical role in the selection of therapy.
The distinction between clinical stage and pathologic stage should be considered when evaluating reports of survival outcome. Surgical staging of the mediastinum is considered standard if accurate evaluation of the nodal status is needed to determine therapy. Errors in clinical staging were equally divided between overstaging and understaging. The Revised International System for Staging Lung Cancer was adopted in 1997 by the American Joint Committee on Cancer and the Union Internationale Contre le Cancer. The other change has been to clarify the classification of multiple tumor nodules.