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Ann Thorac Surg 2003;75:1718-1719
© 2003 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

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Original article: general thoracic

Invited commentary

^a Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, Rm C-867New York, NY 10021, USA

e-mail: ruschv@mskcc.org

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Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), previously thought to be uniformly fatal within two years of diagnosis, is now known to be resectable in many patients with a significant chance of 5-year survival. The patients who are most likely to benefit from surgery and adjuvant therapy include those with early stage, node negative, purely epithelial tumors. However, the accurate preresection staging of MPM patients remains challenging. Imaging studies, especially CT scanning, are the best noninvasive ways of staging MPM, but fail to identify correctly either locally advanced primary tumor (T3 or T4) or lymph node metastases (N1 or N2 disease) in 10 to 20 percent of patients. Schouwink and colleagues find that cervical . . . [Full Text of this Article]