The effect of cell size on the pathologic diagnosis of small and large cell carcinomas of the lung

Abstract

Measurement of tumor nuclear and cell diameter in routine biopsies of 197 patients with lung cancer determined that there is a continuum of cell sizes from small cell to large cell undifferentiated carcinoma and that for oat cell carcinomas tumor cell size is partly dependent on the biopsy size. These results emphasize the potential difficulty of diagnosing and treating patients with tumor overlapping between small cell and large cell carcinomas and offer further evidence that the subclassification of small cell carcinoma is spurious. Copyright © 1982 American Cancer Society