The IASLC Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee has collected a new database of 94,708 cases donated from 35 sources in 16 countries around the globe. This has now been analysed by our statistical partners at Cancer Research And Biostatistics and, in close collaboration with the members of the committee proposals have been developed for the T, N, and M categories of the 8th edition of the TNM Classification for lung cancer due to be published late 2016. In this publication we describe the methods used to evaluate the resultant Stage groupings and the proposals put forward for the 8th edition.

Coronavirus disease has disrupted tuberculosis services globally. Data from 33 centers in 16 countries on 5 continents showed that attendance at tuberculosis centers was lower during the first 4 months of the pandemic in 2020 than for the same period in 2019. Resources are needed to ensure tuberculosis care continuity during the pandemic.

An extensive analysis has produced stage classification proposals for lung cancer with a robust degree of discriminatory consistency and general applicability. Nevertheless, external validation is encouraged to identify areas of strength and weakness; a sound validation should have discriminatory ability and be based on an independent data set of adequate size and sufficient follow-up with enough patients for each subgroup.

This real-life study confirms that omalizumab is very efficacious and very well tolerated in patients with uncontrolled severe asthma. Results did not vary in the subgroup of patients with IgE levels >700 IU/ml.

Aim. To evaluate the effectiveness of omalizumab in non-atopic asthma. Methods. Using data from a multicenter registry of severe asthma, we evaluated and compared the clinical outcome of 29 omalizumab-treated severe non-atopic asthmatics with 266 omalizumab-treated severe allergic asthmatics. Effectiveness was assessed by considering severe exacerbations, pulmonary function, the Global Evaluation of Treatment Effectiveness (GETE) scale, and Asthma Control Test (ACT). Results. Omalizumab demonstrated significant improvement in the clinical status of non-atopic asthmatics as measured by GETE, which rose from 1.6 ± 1.1 to 2.8 ± 0.9 [corrected] at 4 months (p = .0215) to 2.9 ± 0.9 at 1 year (p = .0093) and to 3.4 ± 0.6 at 2 years (p = .0078), and by the ACT, which increased from 13.3 ± 5.5 [corrected] to 17.5 ± 5.4 at 4 months (p = .0236) to 17.9 ± 4.8 at 1 year (p = .0136) and to 20.6 ± 3.9 at 2 years (p = .0024). Forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) improved from 61.0 ± 19.4% to 65.1 ± 17.2 at 4 months to 64.1 ± 24.7 at 1 year and to 67.3 ± 23.0% [corrected] at 2 years, but without significant differences between initial and follow-up measurements (p = .52, .91, and .45, respectively) and exacerbations decreased from 3.1 ± 3.5 to 1.9 ± 2.8 at 1 year (p = .1709) to 1.8 ± 4.4 at 2 years (p = .2344). The results were not significantly different from those obtained in atopic asthmatics. Conclusion. Anti-IgE therapy can be effective in non-atopic severe asthma.