Practice, efficacy and cost of staging suspected non-small cell lung cancer: a retrospective study in two Dutch hospitals

Background: A study was undertaken to investigate the clinical practice, yield, and costs of preoperative staging in patients with suspected NSCLC and to obtain baseline data for prospective studies on the cost effectiveness of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in the management of these patients. Methods: A retrospective study of the medical records of all patients with suspected NSCLC was performed during a 2 year interval (1993–4) in an academic and a large community hospital. Results: Three hundred and ninety five patients with suspected NSCLC were identified; 58 were dee... Mehr ...