Cancer bronchique primitif non à petites cellules : le bilan d'extension

In the case of a patent with metastatic lung cancer there is no need to perform a PET scan as this will not influence the treatment to be applied. Improvements of imaging procedures during the last decades have resulted in a migration of stage (Will Rogers phenomenon) which may account for an apparently better prognosis as well for localized and metastatic disease. Analysis of the literature about prognostic factors in lung cancer during the last decades must take this phenomenon into account, before concluding that changes in prognosis are linked to therapeutic improvements.