New recommendation encourages more activist approach to lung cancer...( ecommend that people check with their p...),Health

"The problem with this approach is that it requires many years for lung cancer risk to be substantially reduced following smoking cessation," says lead author Gary Strauss, MD, MPH, an oncologist and epidemiologist at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School. "For this reason, lung cancer is increasing in frequency among former cigarette smokers. Current and former smokers should be made aware of this continuing risk." Current public policy is largely based upon the results of randomized trials from the 1970s and early 1980s, which have been widely interpreted as showing that screening for lung cancer is ineffective. In fact, these studies have been interpreted as indicating that screening frequently results in the overdiagnosis of lung cancer, which leads to unnecessary procedures. However, more recent analyses of the data from those clinical trials show that overdiagnosis of lung cancer was minimal. Moreover, the data demonstrate that virtually all long-term survivors following the diagnosis of lung cancer were those who had undergone complete surgical removal of the tumor.

In addition, the authors noted that innovations in imaging technologies in the past decade, such as CT scanning and more advanced chest X-rays (which utilize such methods as digital radiography and computer-aided detection) provide the opportunity to detect smaller lung cancers than before. Although false positives might still occur, particularly with CT scans, the medical community has developed effective protocols in order to minimize surgeries on patients with benign tumors, the paper notes.

"There have been major improvements in the methods used for finding lung cancer over the past 10 years. Both CT scanning and improved methods of chest radiographs enhance lung cancer detection, but they were not used in earlier studies. The best current methods can help radiologists detect smal
'"/>

Contact: Nicole Gustin
ngustin@lifespan.org
401-444-7299
Lifespan
11-Apr-2005