The IASLC lung cancer staging project: The new database to inform the eighth edition of the TNM classification of lung cancer

The analyses of the retrospective database of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), consisting of more than 81,000 evaluable patients diagnosed with lung cancer between 1990 and 2000, formed the basis of recommendations to the Union for International Cancer Control and the American Joint Committee on Cancer for the revision of the sixth edition of the tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) classification of lung cancer. However, despite the large number of patients, not all descriptors could be validated. This prompted a new collection of retrospective and prospective data to overcome the limitations of the original retrospective database. The new IASLC database has information on 94,708 new patients diagnosed of lung cancer between 1999 and 2010. They originated from 35 sources in 16 countries, and 4,667 were submitted via the online electronic data capture system. Europe contributed 46,560 patients, Asia: 41,705, North America: 4,660, Australia: 1,593, and South America: 190. After exclusions, 77,156 (70,967 with nonsmall cell lung cancer and 6,189 with small cell lung cancer) remained for analysis. This database will be analyzed according to established objectives for the T, the N, and the M components to inform the eighth edition of the TNM classification of lung cancer due to be published in 2016. The IASLC hopes for the continuing contribution of our partners around the world to improve the classification of anatomical extent of disease, but also to create prognostic groups in a parallel project of the IASLC Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee.