In the last 20 years, major changes have occurred in the diagnosis and management of thoracic oncologic pathology. Furthermore, thoracic surgery has undergone considerable changes since the inception of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology in 2006.Regarding staging of lung cancer, pleural mesothelioma, and thymic epithelial tumors, several revisions were implemented in the TNM classification. The recently published ninth edition represents a tremendous effort of the Staging and Prognostic Factors Group of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer to analyze worldwide survival data and to validate the proposed changes in newly designed categories.
In the last 20 years, major changes have occurred in the diagnosis and management of thoracic oncologic pathology. Furthermore, thoracic surgery has undergone considerable changes since the inception of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology in 2006.Regarding staging of lung cancer, pleural mesothelioma, and thymic epithelial tumors, several revisions were implemented in the TNM classification. The recently published ninth edition represents a tremendous effort of the Staging and Prognostic Factors Group of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer to analyze worldwide survival data and to validate the proposed changes in newly designed categories.