Figure 4.

Practice patterns, diagnoses, stages of disease, and treatment patterns in the SEER database from 2004 to 2007 for which there was detailed T and N stage information. *If surgery was performed without mediastinal lymph node sampling, this was considered as not consistent with guidelines. Similarly, if surgery with lymph node sampling was performed but was not the first test and there was no prior sampling done, then this was classified as not consistent with guidelines. †If a patient received any type of treatment, such as chemotherapy or radiation, without prior lymph node sampling and went on to surgery with lymph node sampling at that time, then this was considered as no lymph node sampling prior to the first treatment. See Figure 1 legend for expansion of abbreviation.