Table 2. Summary of current indications of videomediastinoscopy and transcervical lymphadenectomies for staging NSCLC. Table adapted from Call et al. (11).

Technique	Current ESTS/ACCP guidelines	Additional evidence and comments
VAM	cN2-3: if endosonography methods are negative (1,2)	cN2-3: Mediastinoscopy can be converted to VAMLA when all frozen sections of mediastinal lymph nodes performed during the procedure fail to provide a positive result
	cN0: invasive staging can be omitted (1,2)	Early stage NSCLC (cN0): Some subgroups of patients with an increased risk of N2 (histological type, tumor size, SUVmax, CEA level, patient’s age) may benefit from invasive staging (33)
	cN1, central tumors & tumors >3 cm: ACCP, EBUS/EUS over surgical methods as first test (1); ESTS, The election of the invasive method depends on local expertise (2)	cN1 tumors: Based on the latest evidence, surgical methods should be the staging method of election (26,34,35)
VAMLA & TEMLA	ESTS: their use is limited to clinical studies (2)	Based on latest studies (26,28,36,37), these procedures have been demonstrated to be feasible and safe, and represent the best staging methods in terms of accuracy, especially for those tumors classified cN0-1 by PET-CT
		Both methods are also used as a preresectional lymphadenectomy in VATS lobectomy (21,38-40)

VAM, videomediastinoscopy; VAMLA, video-assisted mediastinoscopic lymphadenectomy; TEMLA, transcervical extended mediastinal lymphadenectomy. NSCLC, non-small cell lung cancer; PET-CT, positron emission tomography-computed tomography.