Should You Get Screened for Lung Cancer?

Should You Get Screened for Lung Cancer?

Screenings for colon, prostate, and skin cancer save lives. In fact, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that if everyone over 50 had regular colon cancer screenings, 60 percent of deaths from the disease could be prevented. Early detection for skin cancer could be the difference between life and death. 

Now, add lung cancer screenings to that life-saving list. For the first time, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has released guidelines on lung cancer screenings. If you're between the ages of 55 and 80 and have a 30 pack-year smoking history--you've been lighting up about a pack a day for 30 years--you should receive an annual screening.

And if you've kicked the habit within the last 15 years, you're also eligible for the screening--which provides a three-dimensional image of your lungs through a low-dose CT scan. 

But smokers aren't the only ones who should consider the procedure. Risk factors--a family history of the disease, a history of other lung diseases such as chronic obstructive lung disease, or occupational exposure to chemicals such as radon, asbestos, arsenic, or coal tar--could deem you eligible.

The screening allows high-risk patients to receive ongoing surveillance providing a greater likelihood of detecting lung cancer early--when the chances of curing it are greater, says Robin Lucas, M.D., a pulmonologist at Somerset Medical Center in New Jersey. 

Normally, even if you have a history of lighting up, you wouldn't necessarily get screened for lung cancer. "The only tool we had was chest X-rays, but they were woefully inadequate," Dr. Lucas says. Why? "X-rays are one dimensional and there are lots of structures--blood vessels, muscle, and bone, for example--that can obscure a cancerous lesion," Dr. Lucas says. 

In fact, an eight-year long study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that low-dose CT scans are effective at detecting cancer--in the study, death rates among patients who got the CT scans were 20 percent lower than for those who got X-rays. The new screening recommendation grew from this study's findings.

If you fit the guidelines, all you have to do is obtain a prescription for a screening from your primary care physician. So if you're worried, ask your doc if a screening may be appropriate.

 

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