Philip Ward

The imminent publication of eagerly anticipated new international guidelines promises to transform the complex area of lung cancer staging. The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer is expected to publish its updated recommendations in 2009. The seventh edition of the guidelines will include tumor, node, and metastasis classification. The original TNM staging of lung cancer proposed in 1973 was based on 2,155 cases from the database of Clifton Mountain, MD, from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.