Earlier this year, the American College of Chest Physicians issued guidelines stating that doctors should consider low-dose CT screening for individuals at high risk for lung cancer. Now the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is following in their footsteps and is planning to recommend annual CT scans for high-risk smokers and former smokers. A high-risk smoker is defined as an individual between the ages of 55 and 79 who has smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 30 years or more. It also includes those smokers who have quit within the past 15 years.
Support for this new recommendation comes from a review of 67 articles published since 2000 analyzing the harms and benefits of screening high-risk adults using low dose CT screening. According to estimates by the task force, this measure will prevent 20,000 lung cancer deaths each year. They also note that in order to save one person from dying from lung cancer, 320 high-risk smokers would have to be screened. For mammograms, that number is between 900 and 1900 and for colonoscopies, that number is 500.
Chairman of the task force, Michael LeFevre says, This is the first time we ve had science that tells us that we can actually avoid some lung cancer deaths through screening. So this is really a big change.
However, many still worry that this recommendation will result in excessive follow-up testing for patients or that screening will uncover cancers which may not have become problematic (overdiagnosis). And then there s also the fact that even with this screening, many of the lung cancers found will be too advanced for treatment.
ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan says, As I have said before, if you are a high-risk smoker who meets these guidelines, screening is a good idea. However, the best advice I would give someone is to quit smoking or just don t start.