LUNG CANCER DIAGNOSIS: NON-INVASIVE AND INVASIVE METHODS

Abstract

This article reviews the literature and summarizes single institution experience of applying different diagnostic algorithms for lung cancer. All diagnostic methods can be divided into three groups: non-invasive; minimally invasive and invasive. The non-invasive methods include clinical examination; imaging methods for anatomical, functional and multimodal visualization; sputum cytological, analysis of the exhaled breath, detection of various blood and sputum markers. Minimally invasive methods include endoscopy, percutaneous fine-needle and core-needle biopsy. Invasive methods include diagnostic thoracoscopy and laparoscopy, mediastinoscopy, parasternal mediastinotomy and diagnostic thoracotomy. While creating an individual diagnostic plan for each patient it is necessary to carefully analyze the effectiveness, safety, sensitivity, specificity and of different methods available among wide range of modern diagnostic techniques. Optimization of lung cancer diagnosis methods, which includes early cancer detection, is one of priority areas of modern oncology. Many aspects of this problem remain unresolved and require further research