The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol 41, 224-229, Copyright © 1986 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Mediastinal assessment for staging and treatment of carcinoma of the lung
H Unruh and RC Chiu
Invasive diagnostic procedures for mediastinal assessment, such as
mediastinoscopy, are necessitated by the importance of staging lung
cancers, both to plan the treatment and to estimate the prognosis. Other
noninvasive techniques may complement or be substituted for mediastinoscopy
under certain specific clinical settings. Thus with the introduction of
newer diagnostic technologies, such as computed axial tomography, the
strategy for mediastinal assessment should be continually reevaluated. In
this review, the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and overall accuracy
of various techniques reported in the literature are examined to elucidate
their current roles in assessing the mediastinal involvement in patients
with lung cancer.