What staging means in lung cancer?
April 4th, 2010
When lung cancer is diagnosed, the pathologist will assign a type (non-small cell lung cancer or small cell lung cancer) and a stage to the cancer. The stage is a formal classification that signifies the extent of the cancer and will determine the type of treatment your oncologist recommends.
Lung cancer staging is based on a pathology (disease) report from tissue obtained during bronchoscopy, needle (or other) biopsy, blood tests, and imaging studies to rule out distant metastasis.