According to a study published on Friday, early detection and increased screening for lung cancer is saving lives.
filter Using CT scans and tracking patients with potential cancer helps doctors identify precancerous lesions and Early cancer Researchers from the Mount Sinai Health System reported in an article published on JAMA Network Open that surgical removal of tissue growth has led to a decline in lung cancer deaths.
The study’s lead author and chair of Thoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Raja Flores, said that the non-profit health system team started one of the largest population-based studies to study the link between lung cancer screening and survival rates. in New York.These findings reflect the National Cancer Institute’s National Lung Screening Trial He said that starting in 2011.

“We have to realize that we have cured lung cancer: this is called surgery,” Flores said. “The problem is that we haven’t found it early enough.”

Flores said that although certain drugs have been shown to prolong survival, the only way to cure lung cancer is to “detect and cure it early.”

The Mount Sinai researchers analyzed data from the National Cancer Institute’s surveillance, epidemiology, and final results program on 312,382 patients with non-small cell lung cancer, and determined that from 2006 to 2016, the number of lung cancer deaths fell by an average of 4% each year.

In these 10 years, the early diagnosis rate has risen significantly from 26.5% to 31.2%, and the late diagnosis rate has dropped from 70.8% to 66.1%. It is determined that the median survival time of patients with early stage lung cancer is close to five years, while the median survival time of advanced cancer patients is 7 months.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended in 2013 that individuals at risk of developing lung cancer should have a CT scan every year. These tests usually find cancer in 24.2% of screenings, while chest X-rays find cancer in only 6.9% of the time.

Despite this, only about 5% of eligible patients were tested, the study author, Dr. Emanuela Taioli, associate director of population science at the Tisch Cancer Institute in Mount Sinai, said in a press conference.

Nationwide, lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths, with more than 200,000 people being diagnosed each year.

Dr. Claudia Henschke, professor of diagnostics, molecular and interventional radiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said at a press conference that the results of the Mount Sinai study emphasize the need for screening of high-risk populations, and the health system needs to consider broader eligibility criteria. .

“If all people who are eligible for screening receive a low-dose CT scan, the radiation dose is equivalent to an annual mammogram, we can save up to 80% of people,” Henschke said. “Our lung cancer screening program is open to all people at risk of developing lung cancer, anyone 40 years and older, regardless of whether they have never smoked, currently smoked, or previously smoked.”

Flores said that doctors need to help patients understand that if they are screened early, the chance of a cure is four out of five.

Previous studies have also explored the historical links between non-small cell lung cancer mortality and programs designed to help individuals quit smoking, early intervention and targeted therapy.

He said that Wolfgang Lehner (Wolfgang Lehner) of Brooklyn, New York received multiple screenings, and his early diagnosis was luck, which led to his lung cancer survival.

Reiner is 62 years old. He started smoking in his hometown of Austria when he was 15 and quit in 2010 35 years later.

Because of his symptoms, age, and smoking history, Dr. Sinai advised Reiner to see a pulmonary specialist and perform a biopsy. He said that when the results showed that adenocarcinoma grew slowly, Lehner felt lucky to be able to detect the cancer early. Less than a month later, he removed the growth.

“People sometimes don’t want to know if they are sick, because the health insurance situation can become very expensive,” Rainer said. “People should overcome fear and self-examine.”