Lungenkarzinom: Diagnostik und Staging

Abstract

Despite medical advances lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths. Lung cancer is usually recognized late in its natural history and at presentation in 80 % unresectable. Smoking history is the most important risk factor. At present time, screening for lung cancer is not recommended. The only chance for cure is tumour resection in early stages, performed in about 20 % of all lung cancer cases. Histological subtypes are non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (80 % of lung cancers) and 20 % small cell lung cancer (SCLC). TNM-staging has important influence on prognosis and therapy. After identification the tumour should be staged using the TNM system. Currently diagnosis and staging rely predominantly on chest radiography and computed tomography (CT) scanning. Positron emission tomography (PET) identifies the tumour by its metabolic activity and helps to find malignant nodal or systemic lesions. Flexible bronchoscopy is the key investigation in the diagnosis and staging of patients with suspected lung cancer. Endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial fine needle aspiration (TBNA) may be utilized to improve the bronchoscopic results in mediastinal staging. Internistic thoracoscopy or video assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) may be used in malignant pleural effusions. Mediastinoscopy staging is the gold-standard for mediastinal staging.

A Rare-Earth Near-Infrared Nanoprobe for the Identification of Small Cell Lung Cancer

“…Small cell lung cancer, as a pathological type with high malignancy and invasiveness in lung cancer, the gold standard for diagnosis is to obtain cytology or histology for pathological diagnosis. 29 , 30 Even in early stages of lung cancer, it is necessary to diagnose small cell lung cancer by obtaining a small quantity of cytological specimens, which can already been observed tumor lesions on CT or PET-CT. The advantage of this study is that cancer cells with a very small quantity of cells can be identified through probes, even if they are not demonstrated in imaging.…”