Multimodality staging of lung cancer

Lung cancer is among the most common and lethal cancers around the world. Most lung cancers are directly attributed to smoking. Common histologic subtypes of lung carcinomas are squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and large cell carcinoma. These carcinomas have similar presentations and are primarily treated surgically. Hence, these are usually classified as non-small cell lung carcinoma. Small cell lung carcinoma is an aggressive neuroendocrine tumor with a generally poor prognosis. It usually presents with massive mediastinal lymphadenopathy and widespread metastases at initial diagnosis, and is usually treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy; surgery has little role.Cough, dyspnea and hemoptysis are the consistent clinical features of most lung cancers. Advances tumors with pleural, chest wall, or mediastinal invasion produce a variety of additional clinical features such as chest pain, brachial plexus neuropathy, Horner syndrome, phrenic or recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy, dysphagia, or superior vena cava syndrome. Sone of the lung cancers are detected as small pulmonary nodules in asymptomatic individuals.