Staging Lung Cancer Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer deaths in men and women. Prognosis depends on the extent of disease at the time of diagnosis. Accurate staging, assessing the extent of local and distant disease, is necessary to determine resectability and overall prognosis.
Surgical resection is the only curative hope for patients with lung cancer.
One goal of staging is to classify properly operable patients and avoid surgery in those with unresectable disease. The interactive table below defines the currently accepted staging system for non-small cell bronchogenic carcinoma. Current statistics on 5 year survival are also shown and examples of different stages are illustrated. Even though the numbers are small, not all enlarged nodes contain metastases. Note the poor sensitivity and agreement for left sided mediastinal lymph nodes.