The IASLC Lung Cancer Staging Project: Proposals for Revision of the TNM Stage Groupings in the Forthcoming (Eighth) Edition of the TNM Classification for Lung Cancer

This long-awaited lung cancer staging update serves as the model for the AJCC 8 update that will be published in the near future.  The primary changes involve T status and an expansion of M status to include a single distant metastasis as T4c.  Stage IA is now subdivided into 3 stages, IIIC has been added, and stage IV has been expanded into IVA and IVB.  Overall, the previous 7 TNM stages have been expanded to 11.