AJR 2000; 175:1215-1221
Boiselle Phillip M., Ernst Armin, Karp Daniel D.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States for both men and women [1]. Despite advances in our understanding and treatment of lung cancer, the prognosis remains poor, with fewer than 15% of affected patients surviving the disease [2-8]. In recent years, early lung cancer, defined as stage IA or IB disease, has been associated with a significantly more favorable prognosis [2-8] (Fig. 1). For example, patients with stage I disease have a survival rate of approximately 60-70%, and those with stage IA disease may have an even more favorable progmosis [2-8]. Because only a minority of patients are diagnosed with stage I disease, the favorable prognosis of early lung cancer has, unfortunately, had little impact on the overall poor survival rate observed in patients with lung cancer [2] (Fig. 2).