Predicting the prognosis of lung cancer: the evolution of tumor, node and metastasis in the molecular age—challenges and opportunities

The tumor, node and metastasis (TNM) classification of malignant tumors was proposed by Pierre Denoit in the mid-20^th century to code the anatomic extent of tumors. Soon after, it was accepted by the Union for International Cancer Control and by the American Joint Committee on Cancer, and published in their respective staging manuals. Till 2002, the revisions of the TNM classification were based on the analyses of a database that included over 5,000 patients, and that was managed by Clifton Mountain. These patients originated from North America and almost all of them had undergone surgical treatment. To overcome these limitations, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer proposed the creation of an international database of lung cancer patients treated with a wider range of therapeutic modalities. The changes introduced in the 7^th edition of the TNM classification of lung cancer, published in 2009, derived from the analysis of an international retrospective database of 81,495 patients. The revisions for the 8^th edition, to be published in 2016, will be based on a new retrospective and prospective international database of 77,156 patients, and will mainly concern tumor size, extrathoracic metastatic disease, and stage grouping. These revisions will improve our capacity to indicate prognosis and will make the TNM classification more robust. In the future the TNM classification will be combined with non-anatomic parameters to define prognostic groups to further refine personalized prognosis.