SEPARATION OF SMALL-CELL FROM NON-SMALL-CELL LUNG-CANCER - THE SOUTHEASTERN-CANCER-STUDY-GROUP PATHOLOGISTS EXPERIENCE

  • 1 January 1984
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 108  (10) , 792-794
Abstract
The pathology materials from 691 patients with lung cancer who participated in therapy protocols with the Southeastern Cancer Study Group were reviewed. Good agreement (94%) was obtained between pathologists over the separation of small-cell carcinomas from non-small-cell carcinomas. Oncologists and cooperative groups should rely on their local pathologists'' diagnoses for the major choices of therapies in lung cancer and realize that there remain a small number of overlapping tumors that are not uniformly diagnosed by routine light microscopy. These require more sophisticated techniques if their diagnosis is to be accurate.