Current imaging practice in lung cancer

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

•. Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. •. At presentation the disease is usually at an advanced stage, often with co-morbidity, leading to a poor 5-year survival of 7%. •. Early detection with radical treatment, most often surgical resection, remains the only potentially curative treatment. •. Discussion in a multidisciplinary team should be standard for cancer care. •. The revised TNM staging system, which describes the anatomical extent of lung cancer at a certain point in the disease process and classifies patients into pathological stages, is expected to combine both non-small cell lung carcinoma and small cell lung carcinoma in a common unified system. Lung cancer is one of the commonest cancers in the world and is a significant cause of mortality. If diagnosed at an early stage, surgical resection is the mainstay of potential cure; however, few patients fulfill the relevant criteria. The role of the radiologist is integral in the multidisciplinary team for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of patients. Central to the management of lung cancer patients is the TNM classification system, now in its seventh iteration. The aim of this article is to provide a review of the changes in the new TNM system. We also give an overview of the recent advances in imaging, including the increasing use of positron emission tomography CT (PET-CT), which is essential for the reporting radiologist.