The criteria for diagnosing BACs have changed since 1999. Under the new definition, BAC is defined as a tumor that grows in a lepidic (that is, a scaly covering) fashion along pre-existing airway structures, without detectable invasion or destruction of the underlying tissue, blood vessels, or lymphatics. Because invasion must be ruled out, BAC can be diagnosed only after complete sectioning and examination of the entire tumor, not using biopsy or cytology samples. BAC is considered a pre-invasive malignant lesion that, after further mutation and progression, eventually generates an invasive adenocarcinoma. Therefore, it is considered a form of carcinoma "in situ" (CIS).

Cancer screening uses medical tests to detect disease in large groups of people who have no symptoms. For individuals with high risk of developing lung cancer, computed tomography (CT) screening can detect cancer and give a person options to respond to it in a way that prolongs life. This form of screening reduces the chance of death from lung cancer by an absolute amount of 0.3% (relative amount of 20%). High risk people are those age 55–74 who have smoked equivalent amount of a pack of cigarettes daily for 30 years including time within the past 15 years.

CT screening is associated with a high rate of falsely positive tests which may result in unneeded treatment. For each true positive scan there are about 19 falsely positives scans. Other concerns include radiation exposure and the cost of testing along with follow up. Research has not found two other available tests—sputum cytology or chest radiograph (CXR) screening tests—to have any benefit.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends yearly screening using low-dose computed tomography in those who have a total smoking history of 30 pack-years and are between 55 and 80 years old until a person has not been smoking for more than 15 years. Screening should not be done in those with other health problems that would make treatment of lung cancer if found not an option. The English National Health Service was in 2014 re-examining the evidence for screening.

Staging is a formal procedure to determine how developed the cancer is. This determines treatment options.

The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) and the International Union Against Cancer (UICC) recommend TNM staging, using a uniform scheme for non-small cell lung carcinoma, small-cell lung carcinoma and broncho-pulmonary carcinoid tumors. With TNM staging, the cancer is classified based on the size of the tumor and spread to lymph nodes and other organs. As the tumor grows in size and the areas affected become larger, the staging of the cancer becomes more advanced as well.

There are several components of NSCLC staging which then influence physicians' treatment strategies. The lung tumor itself is typically assessed both radiographically for overall size as well as by a pathologist under the microscope to identify specific genetic markers or to see if there has been invasion into important structures within the chest (e.g., bronchus or pleural cavity). Next, the patient's nearby lymph nodes within the chest cavity known as the mediastinum will be checked for disease involvement. Finally, the patient will be evaluated for more distant sites of metastatic disease, most typically with brain imaging and or scans of the bones.

The prognosis of patients with FA as a whole is considered to be better than that of most other forms of non-small cell carcinoma, including biphasic pulmonary blastoma.

A multi-step carcinogenesis hypothesis suggests a progression from pulmonary atypical adenomatous hyperplasia (AAH) through bronchioalveolar carcinoma (BAC) to invasive adenocarcinoma (AC), but to date this has not been formally demonstrated.

The survival rates for stages I through IV decrease significantly due to the advancement of the disease. For stage I, the five-year survival rate is 47%, stage II is 30%, stage III is 10%, and stage IV is 1%.

The prognosis of EMECL is relatively good, and considerably better than most other forms of NSCLC. The skull and dura are possible sites for metastasis from pulmonary EMC. The MIB-1 index is a predictive marker of malignant potential.

Because of its rarity, there have been no randomized clinical trials of treatment of GCCL, and all information available derives from small retrospective institutional series or multicenter metadata.

All in all, small-cell carcinoma is very responsive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and in particular, regimens based on platinum-containing agents. However, most people with the disease relapse, and median survival remains low.

In "limited-stage" disease, median survival with treatment is 14–20 months, and about 20% of patients with limited-stage small-cell lung carcinoma live 5 years or longer. Because of its predisposition for early metastasis, the prognosis of SCLC is poor, with only 10% to 15% of patients surviving 3 years.

The prognosis is far more grim in "extensive-stage" small-cell lung carcinoma; with treatment, median survival is 8–13 months; only 1–5% of patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung carcinoma treated with chemotherapy live 5 years or longer.

Giant-cell lung cancers have long been considered to be exceptionally aggressive malignancies that grow very rapidly and have a very poor prognosis.

Many small series have suggested that the prognosis of lung tumors with giant cells is worse than that of most other forms of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including squamous cell carcinoma, and spindle cell carcinoma.

The overall five-year survival rate in GCCL varies between studies but is generally considered to be very low. The (US) Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has reported a figure of 10%, and in a study examining over 150,000 lung cancer cases, a figure of 11.8% was given. However, in the latter report the 11.8% figure was based on data that included spindle cell carcinoma, a variant which is generally considered to have a less dismal prognosis than GCCL. Therefore, the likely survival of "pure" GCCL is probably lower than the stated figure.

In the large 1995 database review by Travis and colleagues, giant-cell carcinoma has the third-worst prognosis among 18 histological forms of lung cancer. (Only small-cell carcinoma and large-cell carcinoma had shorter average survival.)

Most GCCL have already grown and invaded locally and/or regionally, and/or have already metastasized distantly, and are inoperable, at the time of diagnosis.

EMECL is staged in the same manner as other non-small cell lung carcinomas, based on the TNM (Tumor-Node-Metastasis) staging system.

Staging of c-SCLC patients is usually performed in an analogous fashion to patients with "pure" small cell lung carcinoma.

For several decades, SCLC has been staged according to a dichotomous distinction of "limited disease" (LD) "vs." "extensive disease" (ED) tumor burdens. Nearly all clinical trials have been conducted on SCLC patients staged dichotomously in this fashion. LD is roughly defined as a locoregional tumor burden confined to one hemithorax that can be encompassed within a single, tolerable radiation field, and without detectable distant metastases beyond the chest or supraclavicular lymph nodes. A patient is assigned an ED stage when the tumor burden is greater than that defined under LD criteria — either far advanced locoregional disease, malignant effusions from the pleura or pericardium, or distant metastases.

However, more recent data reviewing outcomes in very large numbers of SCLC patients suggests that the TNM staging system used for NSCLC is also reliable and valid when applied to SCLC patients, and that more current versions may allow better treatment decisionmaking and prognostication in SCLC than with the old dichotomous staging protocol.

15% of lung cancers in the US are of this type. Small cell lung cancer occurs almost exclusively in smokers; most commonly in heavy smokers and rarely in non-smokers.

The long-term use of supplemental vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D or vitamin E does not reduce the risk of lung cancer. Some studies suggest that people who eat diets with a higher proportion of vegetables and fruit tend to have a lower risk, but this may be due to confounding—with the lower risk actually due to the association of a high fruit/vegetables diet with less smoking. Several rigorous studies have not demonstrated a clear association between diet and lung cancer risk, although meta-analysis that accounts for smoking status may show benefit from a healthy diet.

In most series, LCLC's comprise between 5% and 10% of all lung cancers.

According to the Nurses' Health Study, the risk of large cell lung carcinoma increases with a previous history of tobacco smoking, with a previous smoking duration of 30 to 40 years giving a relative risk of approximately 2.3 compared to never-smokers, and a duration of more than 40 years giving a relative risk of approximately 3.6.

Another study concluded that cigarette smoking is the predominant cause of large cell lung cancer. It estimated that the odds ratio associated with smoking two or more packs/day for current smokers is 37.0 in men and 72.9 in women.

Definitive diagnosis of Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) requires examination of biopsy tissue. An ideal biopsy specimen is either a punch biopsy or a full-thickness incisional biopsy of the skin including full-thickness dermis and subcutaneous fat. In addition to standard examination under light microscopy, immunohistochemistry (IHC) is also generally required to differentiate MCC from other morphologically similar tumors such as small cell lung cancer, the small cell variant of melanoma, various cutaneous leukemic/lymphoid neoplasms, and Ewing's sarcoma. Similarly, most experts recommend longitudinal imaging of the chest, typically a CT scan, to rule out that the possibility that the skin lesion is a cutaneous metastasis of an underlying small cell carcinoma of the lung.

Reliable comprehensive incidence statistics for c-SCLC are unavailable. In the literature, the frequency with which the c-SCLC variant is diagnosed largely depends on the size of tumor samples, tending to be higher in series where large surgical resection specimens are examined, and lower when diagnoses are based on small cytology and/or biopsy samples. Tatematsu "et al." reported 15 cases of c-SCLC (12%) in their series of 122 consecutive SCLC patients, but only 20 resection specimens were examined. In contrast, Nicholson "et al." found 28 c-SCLC (28%) in a series of 100 consecutive resected SCLC cases. It appears likely, then, that the c-SCLC variant comprises 25% to 30% of all SCLC cases.

As the incidence of SCLC has declined somewhat in the U.S. in recent decades, it is likely that c-SCLC has also decreased in incidence. Nevertheless, small cell carcinomas (including the c-SCLC variant) still comprise 15–20% of all lung cancers, with c-SCLC probably accounting for 4–6%. With 220,000 cases of newly diagnosed lung cancer in the U.S. each year, it can be estimated that between 8,800 and 13,200 of these are c-SCLC.

In a study of 408 consecutive patients with SCLC, Quoix and colleagues found that presentation as a solitary pulmonary nodule (SPN) is particularly indicative of a c-SCLC — about 2/3 of their SPN's were pathologically confirmed to be c-SCLC's containing a large cell carcinoma component.

Adenocarcinoma of the lung tends to stain mucin positive as it is derived from the mucus-producing glands of the lungs. Similar to other adenocarcinoma, if this tumor is well differentiated (low grade) it will resemble the normal glandular structure. Poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma will not resemble the normal glands (high grade) and will be detected by seeing that they stain positive for mucin (which the glands produce). Adenocarcinoma can also be distinguished by staining for TTF-1, a cell marker for adenocarcinoma.

To reveal the adenocarcinomatous lineage of the solid variant, demonstration of intracellular mucin production may be performed. Foci of squamous metaplasia and dysplasia may be present in the epithelium proximal to adenocarcinomas, but these are not the precursor lesions for this tumor. Rather, the precursor of peripheral adenocarcinomas has been termed "atypical adenomatous hyperplasia" (AAH). Microscopically, AAH is a well-demarcated focus of epithelial proliferation, containing cuboidal to low-columnar cells resembling club cells or type II pneumocytes. These demonstrate various degrees of cytologic atypia, including hyperchromasia, pleomorphism, prominent nucleoli. However, the atypia is not to the extent as seen in frank adenocarcinomas. Lesions of AAH are monoclonal, and they share many of the molecular aberrations (like KRAS mutations) that are associated with adenocarcinomas.

LCC is, in effect, a "diagnosis of exclusion", in that the tumor cells lack light microscopic characteristics that would classify the neoplasm as a small-cell carcinoma, squamous-cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, or other more specific histologic type of lung cancer.

LCC is differentiated from small-cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) primarily by the larger size of the anaplastic cells, a higher cytoplasmic-to-nuclear size ratio, and a lack of "salt-and-pepper" chromatin.

Genetic changes are very high in SCLC and LCNEC, but usually low for TC, intermediate for AC.

MCACL has a much more favorable prognosis than most other forms of adenocarcinoma and most other NSCLC's. Cases have been documented of continued growth of these lesions over a period of 10 years without symptoms or metastasis. The overall mortality rate appears to be somewhere in the vicinity of 18% to 27%, depending on the criteria that are used to define this entity.

Because of its extreme rarity, there have been no controlled clinical trials of treatment regimens for FA and, as a result, there are no evidence-based treatment guidelines. Complete surgical resection is the treatment of choice in FA, as it is in nearly all forms of lung cancer.

Anecdotal reports suggest that FA is rarely highly sensitive to cytotoxic drugs or radiation. Case reports suggest that chemotherapy with UFT may be useful in FA.

The diagnosis of SCLC, TC and AC can be made by light microscopy without the need for special tests in most cases, but for LCNEC it is required to demonstrate NE differentiation by immunohistochemistry or electron microscopy.

This type of cancer occurs most often in Caucasians between 60 and 80 years of age, and its rate of incidence is about twice as high in males as in females. There are roughly 1,500 new cases of MCC diagnosed each year in the United States, as compared to around 60,000 new cases of melanoma and over 1 million new cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer. MCC is sometimes mistaken for other histological types of cancer, including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, malignant melanoma, lymphoma, and small cell carcinoma, or as a benign cyst. Researchers believe that exposure to sunlight or ultraviolet light (such as in a tanning bed) may increase the risk of developing this disease. Similar to melanoma, the incidence of MCC in the US is increasing rapidly.

Immunosuppression can profoundly increase the odds of developing Merkel-cell carcinoma. Merkel-cell carcinoma occurs 30 times more often in people with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and 13.4 times more often in people with advanced HIV as compared to the general population; solid organ transplant recipients have a 10-fold increased risk compared to the general population.

Early stage disease is treated surgically. Targeted therapy is available for lung adenocarcinomas with certain mutations. Crizotinib is effective in tumors with fusions involving ALK or ROS1, whereas gefitinib, erlotinib, and afatinib are used in patients whose tumors have mutations in EGFR.