Selection of patients with non-small-cell lung carcinoma for surgical resection.

Cancer of the lung is rapidly increasing in incidence in both sexes and soon will overtake breast cancer as the most deadly cancer in women. Selection of patients with non-small-cell carcinoma for surgical resection is largely based on preoperative clinical staging, using the American Joint Committee on Cancer's TNM-based group staging protocol. Determining the presence or absence of mediastinal nodal metastasis is paramount and is currently best achieved by computed tomographic scanning of the chest and biopsy of enlarged nodes via mediastinoscopy. Certain types of stage III lesions, previously excluded from surgical treatment, are now recognized as operable.