Lung-Tumor Size Predicts Disease Spread
Posted on: Monday, 13 February 2006, 18:00 CST
Lung-tumor size appears to be predictive of whether lung cancer will spread, says a new study.
Smaller lung tumors seems to be less likely to have spread than larger tumors among patients with asymptomatic lung cancer, suggesting that early screening is important in finding curable cases, said researchers in a study published in the Feb. 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Although tumor size has been linked to cancer prognosis in patients with symptoms, the relationship between tumor size, the spread of cancer and the prognosis for patients without symptoms has been unclear, the researchers said.
Doctors at the New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center and the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program screened 28,689 men and women for lung cancer at 38 institutions worldwide between 1993 and 2004.
That screening found 436 cases of non-small cell lung cancer --which is less aggressive than the small-cell type -- and the researchers discovered that:
-- The likelihood of metastasis increased along with tumor size.
-- The association was strongest for solid tumors, weaker for part-solid tumors and not apparent for nonsolid tumors.
-- For the 28 cases of small cell cancer found, the relationship appeared strong for those tumors as well.
The researchers also observed that the percentages of non-metastasized cancer of all types were much higher than those reported in previous studies.
The pattern confirmed herein suggests the usefulness of finding latent cancers at small sizes, the authors said. Most lung cancers without evidence of lymph node metastases are curable, with the curability rate being higher at smaller sizes. This suggests that tumor diameter also serves as a prognostic indicator for curability, perhaps even for micrometastases not detectable by our current techniques, they said.
The advent of computed tomography scanning has allowed physicians to detect smaller lung tumors, the researchers noted.
Source: United Press International
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Posted by Wendy Nkari on 10/06/2007, 07:31 What is the smallest tumor in mm that has been detected with conventional methods like MRI or CT |
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