The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual lung cancer screening with low-dose CT in adults ages 50 to 80 years who have a 20 pack-year smoking history, which equals at least a pack a day for 20 years, and who currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years. But less than 6 percent of people eligible for lung cancer screening get it, according to the American Lung Association. For the new study, researchers examined data on 20-year survival rates for 1,285 patients diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer after undergoing screening with low-dose CT scans. Overall, the 20-year survival rate was 80 percent, according to preliminary study findings presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. “While screening doesn’t prevent cancers from occurring, it is an important tool in identifying lung cancers in their early stage when they can be surgically removed,” lead study author Claudia Henschke, PhD, MD, director of the early lung and cardiac action program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said in a statement. “Ultimately, anyone interested in being screened needs to know that if they are unfortunate enough to develop lung cancer, it can be cured if found early.” While treatments of more advanced cancers with targeted therapy and immunotherapy have come a long way, the best tool against lung cancer deaths is early diagnosis through low-dose CT screening before symptoms occur, the researchers point out. That’s because many early-stage cancers are small enough to be completely removed with surgery, an outcome that typically isn’t possible with larger tumors or cancers that have spread to other parts of the body. Results from the new study extend previous findings from the same patient group, which had 10-year survival rates of 80 percent in an analysis done in 2006. “What we present here is the 20-year follow-up on participants in our screening program who were diagnosed with lung cancer and subsequently treated,” Dr. Henschke said. “The key finding is that even after this long a time interval they are not dying of their lung cancer. And even if new lung cancers were found over time, as long as they continued with annual screening, they would be okay.”
