Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study is to compare the clinical and the pathological staging results and to evaluate the value of clinical staging methods. Patients and Methods: Between January 2005 and January 2009, a total of 402 patients (365 male, 37 female) were operated with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), were evaluated. The patients who received neoadjuvant therapy, having N2 or N3 disease proven by mediastinoscopy or having distant metastatic disease, patients without lymph node dissection or sampling were excluded from the study. All patients underwent CT, and 103 patients underwent PET-CT. Mediastinoscopy was performed 80 patients. All the specimens were examined histopathologically and staging was done according to these results. Results: The mean age was 61.36 ± 9.71. The most common type was squamous cell carcinoma in males (%54.2) and adenocarcinoma in females ( %73). The accuracy of thorax CT was %70 in the staging of T factor. The highest complaince between clinically and pathological results was seen in the T2 factor (% 79.2) and the lowest was in T4 factor (% 31.8). The accuracy of thorax CT was 74%, accuracy of PET-CT was 89% in N factor. When T and N factors are evaluated together, the highest complaince between clinically and pathological results was in stage Ib (61.3%) where it was 54.4% in all the study population. Conclusion: By the usage of non-invasive and invasive methods, only 50% of the non-small cell lung cancer patients are staged correctly. For NSCLC the best staging is achieved by operative findings and mediastinal lymph node dissection.