Mediastinal Staging by Videomediastinoscopy in Clinical N1 Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Prospective Multicentre Study

Decaluwé and colleagues prospectively tested the capacity of preoperative staging by video-assisted mediastinoscopy (VAM) or VAM-lymphadenectomy (VAM-LA) to detect hidden mediastinal lymph node involvement in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Of 105 patients with clinical N1 disease based on PET-CT imaging, one quarter eventually developed N2 disease. Patients underwent either VAM or VAM-LA, which were able to detect mediastinal node involvement with a sensitivity of 73% and accuracy of 93%. The authors suggest that VAM or VAM-LA could be a good staging approach for this group of patients.