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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Jun 28, 2017; 9(6): 269-279
Published online Jun 28, 2017. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v9.i6.269
Revisions to the Tumor, Node, Metastasis staging of lung cancer (8th edition): Rationale, radiologic findings and clinical implications
Fernando U Kay, Asha Kandathil, Kiran Batra, Sachin S Saboo, Suhny Abbara, Prabhakar Rajiah
Fernando U Kay, Asha Kandathil, Kiran Batra, Sachin S Saboo, Suhny Abbara, Prabhakar Rajiah, Department of Radiology, Cardiothoracic Imaging, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75204, United States
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors do not have any conflict of interest or financial disclosure relevant to this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Prabhakar Rajiah, MBBS, MD, FRCR, Associate Professor, Associate Director of Cardiac CT and MRI, Department of Radiology, Cardiothoracic Imaging, UT Southwestern Medical Center, E6.120 B, Mail code 9316, 5323 Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75204, United States. radprabhakar@gmail.com
Telephone: +1-214-6483121
Received: January 31, 2017
Peer-review started: February 6, 2017
First decision: March 7, 2017
Revised: March 21, 2017
Accepted: April 18, 2017
Article in press: April 19, 2017
Published online: June 28, 2017
Processing time: 140 Days and 6.8 Hours
Abstract

The Tumor, Node, Metastasis (TNM) staging system, adopted by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC), has been recently revised, with the new 8th edition of the staging manual being published in January 2017. This edition has few but important evidence-based changes to the TNM staging system used for lung cancer. Radiologists should be aware of the updated classification system to accurately provide staging information to oncologists and oncosurgeons. In this article, we discuss the rationale, illustrate the changes with relevance to Radiology, and review the clinical implications of the 8th edition of the UICC/AJCC TNM staging system with regards to lung cancer.

Keywords: Lung, cancer; Tumor, Node, Metastasis; Staging; 8th edition

Core tip: This article discusses the rationale, illustrates the changes with relevance to Radiology, and reviews the clinical implications of the 8th edition of the Union for International Cancer Control/American Joint Committee on Cancer Tumor, Node, Metastasis staging of lung cancer.