The diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer in the molecular era

Lung carcinoma is the leading cause of cancer mortality for both genders in the United States and throughout the world. Many of these tumors are being diagnosed with minimally invasive means resulting in small samples. There is a need to extract an increasing amount of therapeutic and prognostic information from progressively smaller samples. Collaboration among clinicians and pathologists is needed to produce a comprehensive final diagnosis in patients with lung cancer. This collaboration facilitates triage of small samples for ancillary studies including molecular testing. What follows represents a review of the current required testing for lung cancer specimens, an example of an algorithm currently employed at the Cleveland Clinic so that all required tests can be performed even on the smallest of specimens and suggestions on how pathologists may approach this new era of doing more with less.