0000000001276170
AUTHOR
Tsegay Metz
Staging small cell lung cancer: Veterans Administration Lung Study Group versus International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer--what limits limited disease?
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is usually classified into a two-stage system, limited (LD) and extensive disease (ED). However, the criteria for these two categories remain controversial. The widely used Veterans Administration Lung Study Group (VALG) definition of LD includes patients with primary tumor and nodal involvement limited to one hemithorax. In contrast, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) recommends that LD should additionally include all patients without distant metastasis. As a consequence, since treatment modalities for LD and ED could be different, individual clinical outcome of SCLC patients may be influenced by the staging system chosen. Among…
c-erbB-2 expression in small-cell lung cancer is associated with poor prognosis.
Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) carries a bad prognosis despite good initial response to chemotherapy. It is therefore important to identify molecular markers that influence survival as potential new therapeutic targets. In our study, expression of the tyrosine kinase c-erbB-2 (HER2/neu) receptor in tumor tissues of 107 consecutive newly diagnosed patients with primary SCLC was quantified using a monoclonal antibody directed against the c-terminal domain of c-erbB-2. A clear-cut positive expression of c-erbB-2 was observed in 13% of patients. Surprisingly, c-erbB-2 was an independent prognostic factor (RR = 2.16; p = 0.014) when a proportional-hazard model was adjusted to stage (limited vs. e…