. 2020 May 13;25(7):703–708. doi: 10.1111/resp.13843

Table 1.

Summary of recommendations based on clinical stage of suspected/confirmed lesion

Clinical stage^†	Recommended management strategy
Stage I	Percutaneous biopsy where technically possible
Stage I	Consider resectional biopsy or empiric SABR
Stage II	Percutaneous biopsy where technically possible
Stage II	Consider surgical resection without tissue diagnosis
Stage III	Percutaneous biopsy of primary lesion for bulky/multi‐station mediastinal involvement of PET/CT
	EBUS‐TBNA for sampling of single‐station cN2/3 disease
	EBUS‐TBNA for tissue diagnosis ± ancillary molecular testing where no option for percutaneous sampling is available
Stage IV	Percutaneous biopsy/(drain) where possible from extrathoracic site
Stage IV	EBUS‐TBNA for patients with extrathoracic sites unsuitable for minimally invasive biopsy or bony metastases as sole M1 site ²⁶

^†

On the basis of PET/CT.

CT, computed tomography; EBUS‐TBNA, endobronchial ultrasound‐guided transbronchial needle aspiration; PET, positron emission tomography; SABR, stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy.