Press Release
Nov 03, 2023
Researchers evaluating the clinical significance of the IASLC-proposed criteria for tumor invasion found that proposed criteria offered better alignment with clinicopathologic risk factors and improved prognostication. The study is published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the official journal of the IASLC.
(Denver—November 3, 2023)—Researchers evaluating the clinical significance of the IASLC-proposed criteria for tumor invasion found that the proposed criteria offered better alignment with clinicopathologic risk factors and improved prognostication. The study is published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the official journal of the IASLC.
The complete study can be found here: https://www.jto.org/article/S1556-0864(23)02311-0/fulltext.
Accurate diagnostic criteria for tumor invasion are essential for precise pathologic tumor (pT) staging. Recently, the IASLC Pathology Committee suggested a new criteria for assessing tumor invasion but the clinical usefulness of the proposed criteria has not been evaluated.
Tumor invasion in lung adenocarcinoma is defined as infiltration of stroma, blood vessels, or pleura.
In the eighth edition of the TNM classification for lung cancer, significant changes were made for non-mucinous lung adenocarcinoma, where the tumor staging changed to evaluate radiologic solid tumor size for clinical tumor (cT) staging and to measure invasive tumor size for pathologic tumor (pT) staging. However, significant interobserver variability in assessing tumor invasion remained a hurdle for precise pathologic tumor staging.
To evaluate the IASLC criteria, researchers from Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, Korea analyzed 1,295 patients with resected part-solid lung adenocarcinoma from January 2017 to December 2019.
The revised pathological stage was determined by the extent of the newly measured invasive component using the IASLC criteria. The primary outcome was to compare the performance of revised pT stage with conventional pathological stage in predicting recurrence-free survival and proof of invasion status (i.e., recurrence or lymph node metastasis). The secondary outcome was the correlation with radiologic surrogates of tumor invasiveness (Consolidation-to-tumor ratio [CTR] and maximum standardized uptake value [SUVmax]) and pathologic risk factors.
The re-evaluation resulted in a 22% downstaging and 2.5% upstaging of pT, which improved the correlation with radiologic (CTR and SUVmax) and pathologic risk factors. The revised pT staging allowed for more accurate discrimination of RFS than the conventional pT staging (c-index = 0.794 vs. 0.717). Moreover, the revised pT staging significantly improved the prediction of recurrence or lymph node metastasis (area under the curve = 0.818 vs. 0.741, p<0.001).
“This is the first study evaluating the clinical significance of the IASLC-proposed criteria for invasion and we found the proposed IASLC criteria offered better alignment with clinicopathologic risk factors and improved prognostication but we recommend that further studies are warranted to assess the impact of the IASLC criteria on treatment decisions and patient outcomes,” Hong Kwan Kim, MD, PhD, Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Samsung Medical Center and Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine.
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About IASLC: The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is the only global organization dedicated solely to the study of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. Founded in 1974, the association's membership includes more than 10,000 lung cancer specialists across all disciplines in over 100 countries, forming a global network working together to conquer lung and thoracic cancers worldwide. The association also publishes the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the primary educational and informational publication for topics relevant to the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of all thoracic malignancies. Visit www.iaslc.org for more information.
About the JTO: Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO), the official journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, is the primary educational and informational publication for topics relevant to the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of all thoracic malignancies. JTO emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach and includes original research reviews and opinion pieces. The audience includes epidemiologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, thoracic surgeons, pulmonologists, radiologists, pathologists, nuclear medicine physicians, and research scientists with a special interest in thoracic oncology.