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:
“... there are two types of happiness and I have chosen that of the murderers. For I am happy. There was a time when I thought I had reached the limit of distress. Beyond that limit, there is a sterile and magnificent happiness.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The American man is a very simple and cheap mechanism. The American woman I find a complicated and expensive one. Contrasts of feminine types are possible. I am not absolutely sure that there is more than one American man.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults.”
—Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994)