OUTLINE: Patients undergo a positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) scan within 90 days before surgery. Beginning 1-4 hours before surgery on day 1, patients receive an injection of fludeoxyglucose F 18 (FDG) and a mediastinoscopy is performed. FDG-avid lymph nodes are obtained and may undergo immunohistochemical analysis or standard analysis. Patients with mediastinal lymph node micrometastasis do not undergo primary tumor resection. Patients with ipsilateral mediastinal micrometastases undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy prior to surgical resection. Patients with contralateral mediastinal micrometastases undergo definitive chemoradiotherapy. In the absence of mediastinal lymph node metastases (micro or macro), complete surgical resection is performed after the mediastinoscopy, including complete thoracic lymphadenectomy. The tumor and lymph nodes (both from mediastinoscopy and thoracotomy) undergo radioactivity measurements with the hand-held gamma probe. Fresh tumor and lymph node samples are stored for future studies.