Why read up on lung cancer staging? To start, staging is an incredibly important step in your diagnosis. It’s impossible to know the best treatment option for you or your loved one without knowing the stage of the cancer, as treatments differ from stage to stage due to FDA approvals and the availability of clinical trials. Plus, knowing where your cancer has spread gives your treatment team more information about pros and cons of different medications and treatments, and how effective different types of treatment could be.

Beyond the clear necessity to stage to identify the best treatment path, staging can offer many other important benefits to you, your loved ones, and your healthcare team. Each individual stage offers a different level of biomarker testing—testing that looks for biological changes in genes or proteins that may be associated with your cancer. Every person’s cancer is different and biomarker testing helps identify the best treatment for your individual case.

A lung cancer diagnosis can feel like you’re being robbed of control—but education is an empowering tool throughout your lung cancer journey. We’re here to help.

The Staging System

Lung cancer is staged using the TNM staging systems—one of the most commonly used cancer staging systems in the world. TNM looks at three factors:

T – The size of the tumor.

N – If and how much the cancer has spread to lymph nodes.

M ­– If and how far the cancer has spread beyond the lymph nodes (metastasis).

Both non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer use this staging system, however, small cell may also still be staged by the old system: limited stage (has not spread beyond one lung and the lymph nodes near that lung) or extensive stage (cancer is in both lungs or has spread to other areas of the body).

Helpful Tools: Staging Videos and One-Pagers

Watch the educational videos below to learn more about each stage and click here to download the videos.

This video series was created with support from AstraZeneca.

Our accompanying staging one-pager series (Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4) along with other educational materials can be downloaded for free on our website.

We are dedicated to providing those facing lung cancer with the most up-to-day and reader-friendly information. If you are living with lung cancer or know someone who is and would like a personalized educational package free of charge, call our toll-free HelpLine at 1-800-298-2436 or email support@go2.org.