Lung Cancer Remains The Most Lethal Cancer

Lung Cancer Remains The Most Lethal Cancer.
New recommendations from the American Cancer Society voice that older up to date or former heavy smokers may want to consideration low-dose CT scans to help screen for lung cancer. Specifically, that includes those elderly 55 to 74 with a 30 pack-year smoking history who still smoke or who had quit within the past 15 years. Pack-years are a count made by multiplying the number of packs of cigarettes smoked a period by the number of years of smoking. "Even with screening, lung cancer would remain the most lethal cancer," said Dr Norman Edelman, captain medical officer at the American Lung Association.

He notable the cancer society guidelines are similar to the ones from the lung association. The unfamiliar recommendation follows on the results of a major US National Cancer Institute study, published in 2010 in Radiology, that found that annual CT screening for lung cancer for older accepted or previous smokers cut their death rate by 20 percent.

Edelman stressed that the study does nothing to change the experience that smoking prevention and cessation remain the most important public health challenge there is. "Screening is not a passage to make smoking safe from cancer deaths, and certainly does nothing to prevent smoking-related deaths from habitual obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease".

The cancer society recommendations also call smoking cessation counseling as a high priority and stress that CT screening is not an alternative to quitting smoking. CT screening should only be done after a examination between patients and their doctors so people fully understand the benefits, limitations and risks of screening. In addition, screening should only be done by someone au fait in low-dose CT lung cancer screening, the cancer bund stressed.