title: Separation of small-cell from non-small-cell lung cancer. The Southeastern Cancer Study Group pathologists' experience.
abstract: We reviewed the pathology materials from 691 patients with lung cancer who participated in therapy protocols with the Southeastern Cancer Study Group. We found good agreement (94%) between pathologists over the separation of small-cell carcinomas from non-small-cell carcinomas. Thus, oncologists and cooperative groups should rely on their local pathologists' diagnoses for the major choices of therapies in lung cancer and realize that there remain a small number of overlapping tumors that are not uniformly diagnosed by routine light microscopy and that require more sophisticated techniques if their diagnosis is to be accurate.
mesh_terms: D018288:Carcinoma, Small Cell / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*