Size doesn't matter, at least not in terms of cancerous lung tumors. In a recent study by the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, researchers showed the size of a tumor does not necessarily indicate the severity of lung cancer.
"The question we asked was, does stage distribution change depending on the size category of the tumor?" said Dr. Laura Heyneman, a researcher for the study and assistant professor of radiology at Duke University Medical Center.
The study, conducted over a period of 10 years, focused on 620 men and women who had come to the Medical Center for treatment of lung tumors that were three centimeters in size or less.
Researchers found that people with very small tumors have the same chance of having more serious cancer than those with larger lesions.
"The size of the tumor itself doesn't really predict how well people will do," said researcher Dr. Philip Goodman, also a professor of radiology.
The data showed that both patients with primary lesions that are one centimeter or smaller in diameter and those who have lesions that measure two to three centimeters have the same chance of being equally advanced.
Lung cancer stages range from stage I, in which the cancer is thought not to have metastasized, to stage IV, when the cancer has spread from its original location to another area of the body.
Furthermore, detection of small tumors through CT scans, which are used for screening and early detection of lung cancer, does not necessarily signify that the cancer is in its early stages.
Heyneman said these findings demonstrate the need for further study. "There's been a lot of interest recently in screening for lung cancer using CT scans to find very small tumors," she said.
"What has yet to be determined is that simply finding a tumor when it is tiny actually affects the outcome and biological behavior of the disease," she explained.
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