Stage III of lung cancer affects the lymph nodes

Stage III is divided into stages IIIA and IIIB. IIIA can mean one of two things. There is cancer in nodes further away from the affected lung, but still on the same side of the chest. Or there is cancer only in lymph nodes nearest to the affected lung but the cancer has also spread to either the chest wall or the covering of the lung (pleura) or the middle of the chest (mediastinum).
IIIB cancer means one of 4 things:
• There is cancer spread to nodes on the other side of the chest or to nodes above either collarbone
• There is more than one tumor in the affected lobe of the lung
• The tumor has grown into another major structure in the chest, which could be the heart, the windpipe, the gullet (oesophagus) or a main blood vessel
• There is a fluid collection around the lung that contains cancer cells (a malignant pleural effusion)