Outcomes of invasive mediastinal nodal staging versus positron emission tomography staging alone for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy

•Invasive mediastinal nodal staging (IMNS) pathologically samples mediastinal nodes.•The benefit to IMNS over positron emission tomography (PET) alone is undefined.•This multi-institutional study of 180 patients sought to address this issue.•Patients receiving IMNS had similar survival and patterns of failure as PET alone.•Further study is needed to determine which subgroups might benefit from IMNS.