Pretreatment clinical staging of carcinoma of the lung.

A brief history is presented outlining the development of pretreatment clinical staging of carcinoma of the lung. All segments of the medical profession are urged to use the pretreatment clinical staging of carcinoma of the lung as presented by the American Joint Committee on Cancer Staging and End Result Reporting and adopted by the International Union Against Cancer. The results of a retrospective study of clinical staging of carcinoma of the lung compared with postsurgical staging is presented. It is believed that clinical staging of carcinoma of the lung will result in improvement in diagnosis, treatment and understanding of the disease.