Treatment implications of the new lung cancer staging system

The American Joint Commission on Cancer along with the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) has published new guidelines for lung cancer staging based on observations from 100,869 lung cancer patients. Revised tumor, node, metastasis (TNM) criteria were derived from IASLC patient survival curves, and were validated using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Report program. The seventh edition TNM classification revised the T1, T2, T3, and M1 descriptors. It is estimated that 10% to 15% of newly diagnosed lung cancer patients will be assigned a different disease stage as a result of these changes.