What are the stages of small-cell lung cancer?
Small-cell lung cancer accounts for about 20 percent of all lung cancers, but it is by far the more aggressive version, developing and spreading rapidly. It is staged as either limited confined to one lung and the lymph nodes on the same side of the chest or extensive. Extensive means the cancer has spread to the other lung and its associated lymph nodes, and/or to other parts of the body. As the name suggests, the cells are small. However, it can form large tumors. Small-cell cancer is sometimes called by the names small-cell undifferentiated carcinoma and oat cell cancer. Almost 100 percent of cases with this version of lung cancer are found in smokers.
