Test that could save the life of a long-time smoker you know

A test called CT lung cancer screening could save the lives of tens of thousands of American smokers and former smokers every year, but only only 4% of those eligible are getting it.

One such patient, a 58-year-old woman I’ll call Marie, battled cigarette smoking for over three decades before finally quitting on her 50th birthday. A few years later, Marie had the test, and the radiologist found an 8 millimeter nodule in her right lung, which proved to be a small cancer. She had the tumor removed, and now she is five years out from surgery, with no signs of cancer. In two months, she will welcome her first grandchild.

Marie’s story is not unusual. While U.S. smoking rates have fallen to a historic low, 38 million Americans still smoke. Men who currently smoke have a risk of lung cancer about 23 times that of nonsmokers, while the risk for women is about 13 times higher. Naturally, the best thing smokers can do to lower their risk of lung cancer is to quit, but the increased risk of cancer does not disappear immediately. It gradually declines over decades.

Battling lung cancer matters, because it is the number one cancer killer in the U.S., causing an estimated 154,000 deaths a year – more than all colon, breast and prostate cancer deaths combined.

The American Lung Association estimates that 234,000 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year, 85% of whom will have been cigarette smokers.

CT screening

As a radiologist, I am familiar with CT lung cancer screening. CT stands for computed tomography, a sophisticated type of X-ray imaging. When lung cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, long-term survival is 70%, compared to only 5% when it has spread to other parts of the body.

Its value was established in the National Lung Screening Trial, a $300 million National Cancer Institute study launched in 2002 that followed 53,000 current or former smokers for five years. Investigators found a 20% mortality reduction among those screened by CT. A more recent Japanese study showed a 51% reduction in mortality.