TABLE 3.
Summary of the diagnostics
| Diagnostic modality | Procedure | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Medical history | Examination by a physician | Identifying typical lung cancer symptoms and risk factors such as smoking history |
| Physical examination | Clinical examination by a physician | Differential diagnosis between infection and oncological disease |
| X-ray | Imaging | Differential diagnosis |
| CT scan | Imaging | Staging: size, tumour location and spread to nearby tissues and organs, identifying metastases (best method of assessing adrenal metastases ) |
| FDG-PET/CT | Imaging | Staging: tumour location, mediastinal lymph node involvement, metastatic spread |
| MRI | Imaging | Staging: brain metastases |
| Bronchoscopy | Biopsy | Cancer tissue sampling |
| Transthoracic needle aspiration | Biopsy | Cancer tissue sampling |
| Surgical resection | Biopsy | Cancer tissue sampling |
| EBUS/EUS | Biopsy | Cancer tissue sampling |
| Mediastinoscopy | Biopsy | Cancer tissue sampling |
| Histology | Pathological analysis | Biological characterisation of lung cancer |
| Immunohistochemistry | Pathological analysis | Subtype classification by expression of specific markers (e.g. expression of neuroendocrine markers synaptophysin, chromogranin A, CD56) |
| Next-generation sequencing | Genetic analysis | Identifying actionable mutations |
CT: computed tomography; FDG-PET: 2-deoxy-2-[18F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission tomography; MRI:- magnetic resonance imaging; EBUS: endobronchial ultrasound; EUS: endoscopic ultrasound.