Types
The most common types of NSCLC are squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma, but there are several other types that occur less frequently, and all types can occur in unusual histologic variants and as mixed cell-type combinations.
Sometimes the phrase "non-small-cell lung cancer" ("not otherwise specified", or NOS) is used generically, usually when a more specific diagnosis cannot be made. This is most often the case when a pathologist examines a small amount of malignant cells or tissue in a cytology or biopsy specimen.
Lung cancer in never-smokers is almost universally NSCLC, with a sizeable majority being adenocarcinoma.
On relatively rare occasions, malignant lung tumors are found to contain components of both SCLC and NSCLC. In these cases, the tumors should be classified as combined small cell lung carcinoma (c-SCLC), and are (usually) treated like "pure" SCLC.
Read more about this topic: Non-small-cell Lung Carcinoma
Famous quotes containing the word types:
“He types his laboured column—weary drudge!
Senile fudge and solemn:
Spare, editor, to condemn
These dry leaves of his autumn.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)
“If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)