A recent study reveals that using effective ultrasound techniques in order to detect non-small-cell lung cancer should always be medic's first choice before applying surgery.

The study of led researcher Jouke Annema, who is an MD, PhD and chest physician at the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, Netherlands, compared the effectiveness of two different techniques that aim to discover non-small-cell lung cancer.

The technique of endosonography uses ultrasound to capture the internal organs whereas the so called mediastinoscopy represents a surgical technique that opens a patient's chest to examine his external lung structure.

Annema comments on the findings that are published in The Journal of the American Medical Association: ''These data clearly indicate you should start with the endosonography. You only do the surgical staging if the ultrasound is completely normal. If you do ultrasound and find lymph node involvement, then you know the disease has spread."

Annema further highlights the reduction of unnecessary chest incisions if more patients will be treated with endosonography instead of surgery.

The cancer that is globally diagnosed most frequently with 1.35 million affections every year causes the annual death of 1.18 million patients worldwide. Annema underlines that the disease is most often diagnosed already in an advanced stage.