[Lymph node clearance]

The goal of mediastinal sampling or a radical lymph node resection after lung cancer resection is to correctly stage the illness to enable a more accurate assessment of prognosis. Metastasis to mediastinal nodes may be encountered even in small peripheral T1 tumours. Radical lymph node resection often uncovers metastases that would have been missed by mediastinal sampling alone. The morbidity associated with radical node resection is very low, and long term survival appears to be improved, compared with node sampling. At present, lymph node staging has little influence on the choice of adjuvant treatments.