Current status and perspectives of spread through air spaces in lung cancer

According to the World Health Organization classification of 2015, spread through air spaces (STAS) is a newly recognized pattern of invasion in lung adenocarcinoma. Many researchers have reported that STAS is recognized in all histological subtypes, and there is a strong association between STAS and prognosis in lung cancer. However, there are several technical issues associated with STAS, such as distinction between the actual in vivo phenomenon and an artifact, difficulty in assessing STAS in frozen specimens, and establishing the relationship between morphological and molecular properties of STAS. This review focuses on the current state of knowledge and the outlook of the STAS phenomenon from the perspective of surgeons, pathologists, and radiologists.