Letter to the editor concerning ‘Stepwise flowchart for decision making on sublobar resection through the estimation of spread through air space in early stage lung cancer’

We would like to comment on the recent published article entitled ‘Stepwise flowchart for decision making on sublobar resection through the estimation of spread through air space in early stage lung cancer’ in Lung Cancer [ [1] Suh J.W. Jeong Y.H. Cho A. et al. Stepwise flowchart for decision making on sublobar resection through the estimation of spread through air space in early stage lung cancer. Lung Cancer. 2020; 142: 28-33 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (13) Google Scholar ]. Stepwise flowchart for decision making on sublobar resection through the estimation of spread through air space in early stage lung cancer1Lung CancerVol. 142PreviewTumor spread through air space (STAS) is defined as tumor cells within air spaces in the surrounding lung parenchyma, beyond the edges of the main tumor [1]. STAS was first introduced in the 2015 WHO classification of lung cancer and was formally proposed as a new invasive pattern of adenocarcinoma at that time [2]. STAS is associated with lymphovascular invasion, solid predominant histology, and EGFR wild type [3]. It is a well-known negative prognostic factor that predicts a high risk of locoregional recurrence in lung adenocarcinomas and is closely associated with a reduction in both recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival [2]. Full-Text PDF