Can waiting for a lung cancer diagnosis cause a dangerous delay in treatment?

Can waiting for a lung cancer diagnosis cause a dangerous delay in treatment?

Jay M. Lee (Surgical Director, Thoracic Oncology Program, UCLA) gives expert video advice on: How is lung cancer diagnosed?; What are some common non-surgical procedures used to diagnose lung cancer?; Can waiting for a lung cancer diagnosis cause a dangerous delay in treatment? and more...

Lung cancer management requires a staging, and staging requires a number of studies to be obtained, mostly in the form of radiologic studies or some noninvasive or less invasive ways to obtain a tissue diagnosis. The process of getting the entire workup can take time to do, and it is acceptable that this is in the order of several weeks. Ideally, we would like to get this done in a period of two to four weeks, but this is a guideline and during that period it is unusual that your cancer or your prognosis is going to be changed by obtaining these studies. Overall, most physicians out there feel that this will not impact or delay your treatment.