[Advances in Lymph Node Metastasis and the Modes of Lymph Node 
Dissection in Early Stage Non-small Cell Lung Caner]

Lung cancer ranks the first position in morbidity and mortality among all malignances in China. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for nearly 80% of all lung malignancies. Surgical resection is still the current major treatment method for early stage NSCLC. Lymph node stages together with the extent of lymph node dissection directly affect the prognosis. Anatomical lobectomy with systematic mediastinal lymph node dissection have been the standard surgical treatment for NSCLC. However, it is controversial in the extent of lymph node dissection for early stage NSCLC. Accurate nodes stage and the extent of mediatinal nodes dissection affect the peri-operative complications and the prognosis of NSCLC greatly. In the past decade, more and more surgeons demostrated that lobe-specific or selective mediastinal lymph node dissection is suitable for clinical stage I NSCLC, especially the stage Ia lesions, and may become the standard lymph node dissection mode in the future.