[The clinical pathway in China county for lung cancer diagnosis and treatment (2024 edition)].

Abstract

Standardizing the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer is a key measure to improve the survival rate of lung cancer patients and reduce the mortality rate. However, county hospitals generally face the problem of inaccessibility to advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies. Therefore, when developing quality control standards and clinical diagnosis and treatment specifications, it is necessary to combine the actual situation of county hospitals and formulate specific recommendations. The recommendations of treatment measures also need to consider the approval status of indications and whether it is included in the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL), to ensure the access to medicines. To address the above issues, based on the existing guidelines at home and abroad and the clinical work characteristics of county hospitals, the " the clinical pathway in China county for lung cancer diagnosis and treatment (2024 edition)" has been updated on the basis of the first edition. This pathway elaborated on the imaging diagnosis, pathological diagnosis, molecular testing, precision medicine, and developed different diagnosis and treatment processes for different types of lung cancer patients. Consistent with the first pathway, this update still divides the recommendations for diagnosis and treatment of clinical scenarios into basic strategies and optional strategies for elaboration. The basic strategies are the standards that county hospitals must meet, while the optional strategies provide more choices for hospitals, which are convenient for county doctors to put into clinical practice. All the recommended diagnostic and treatment plans strictly refer to existing guidelines and consensus. Compared to the first edition, based on the latest high-level evidence-based medicine and the approval status of indications, the pathway has updated the diagnosis and treatment recommendations for lung cancer under different pathological types, TNM classification, and molecular classification in basic and optional strategies.