[The pre-operative assessment of bronchial carcinoma. The surgeon's viewpoint]

The overall prognosis of non-small cell carcinoma of the bronchus (NSCLC) remains poor on account of frequently late diagnosis and associated co-morbidity preventing the optimal treatment of the tumour. Surgical resection remains the best curative treatment for limited stage disease.

The pre-operative assessment should determine whether the extent of the tumour permits complete resection and whether the physiological state of the patient would tolerate the curative resection required. The ultimate goal is to improve 5-year survival. In the case of initial inoperability the assessment should determine whether pre-operative oncological treatment might make an advanced tumour operable (e.g. stage IIIA), or whether targeted medical treatment might improve the patient sufficiently to tolerate an intervention initially judged too risky. The rapid development of the technical modalities available for the assessment requires a continuous review of the current practice guidelines. Positron emission tomography has considerably augmented the accuracy of classical radiological assessment. Nevertheless staging by imaging alone remains imprecise to the extent that invasive examinations are still necessary to provide histological proof of the clinical stage of NSCLC. The techniques for assessing mediastinal invasion are developing rapidly and becoming more accurate and less invasive. Mediastinoscopy enhanced by modern video technology, ultrasound guided endoscopic biopsies and thoracoscopy are complimentary rather than competing techniques. The functional assessment should estimate the operative risk of the proposed pulmonary resection, identify the targeted actions aimed at reducing this risk or, in the absence of such actions, suggest less invasive but less well validated surgical techniques or even palliative treatments. When the operative risk cannot be reduced its precise estimation at least allows the patient to decide whether the risk seems acceptable in relation to the chances of a cure.

In the future the pre-operative assessment of NSCLC should improve the detection of micro-metastases in order to optimise the choice of induction and adjuvant therapies. The increasing use of induction chemotherapy before surgical resection can only increase the importance of a detailed assessment for the selection of patients and the evaluation of results.