Expert Oncologists in Small Cell Lung Cancer Care

Also known as oat cell cancer, small cell lung cancer (SCLC) makes up about 10 to 15 percent of lung cancers.

It is can be staged using the TNM system, which is much less useful for SCLC compared to NSCLC:

• T tells how large the main tumor is and whether it has grown into nearby structures.
• N tells whether the cancer has reached nearby lymph nodes.
• M tells whether the cancer has spread (metastasized) to other organs in the body, such as your brain, bones, or liver.

Once the T, N and M categories have been determined, your health care provider uses this information to find out the overall stage of your cancer (0, I, II, III, or IV).

For practical purposes, oncologists usually prefer to divide SCLC into two stages:

• Limited: In this stage, you have cancer only in one lung. You may also have cancer in nearby lymph nodes, but it can be reached with a single radiation field.
• Extensive: If you have extensive stage cancer, the cancer has spread too far to be treated with one radiation field. It may have spread to the other lung, to lymph nodes on the other side of the chest or to distant parts of the body.

To contact one of New Jersey’s best lung and thoracic cancer specialists call
844-CANCERNJ or 844-226-2376.