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Original Articles: General Thoracic

Invited Commentary

^a Istituto Europeo di Oncologia ed Università degli Studi di Milano, Via G. Ripamonti, 435, Milan, I-20141 Italy
^b Centro Diagnostico Italiano, Via Saint Bon, 20, Milan, I-20147 Italy

(Email: giuseppe.pelosi@ieo.it; rosai@cdi.it).

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The inherent biological aggressiveness of lung cancer renders its control ineffectual in most instances if the disease is already symptomatic, locally advanced, or metastatic, or a combination of these. These attributes indicate high morbidity and mortality rates and a disappointing outcome to multimodality therapy [1]. Therefore, efforts have been aimed at detecting cancer early under the assumption that the lower the stage, the more curable the cancer [2–5]. This approach requires an accurate tumor staging according to the time-honored and still effective, anatomically-defined TNM system, which was developed in France by Pierre Denoix in the 1940s. The system classifies cancer according to the extent of local (tumor), regional (node), and distant (metastasis), and it continues to play a fundamental role in lung cancer management as the most powerful and reliable predictor of prognosis. Moreover, TMN staging represents the operational basis for choosing the most appropriate therapy and for evaluating the efficacy of different therapeutic methods by comparison of expected survival rates. In other words, cancer staging still remains an essential component of patient care and of cancer research and control activities, even in light of impressive progress in clinical management and molecular medicine.

We, as physicians, have always attempted to improve our . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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