By Jeremy Morris, Associate Editor, USDR.
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) today issued a draft recommendation in favor of CT screening for those at high risk of lung cancer.
For this context, risk is assessed based on age and smoking history: “Based on evidence from clinical trials and modeling studies, a reasonable balance of benefits and harms is obtained by screening healthy persons with a 30 pack-year or more history of smoking who are ages 55 to 79 years and have smoked within the past 15 years.” Approval of this recommendation will trigger Medicare and other insurance coverage, leading to increases in lung cancer survival.
“The value of early detection in decreasing lung cancer mortality has now been established. This is a vital step in saving lives from lung cancer for the thousands of people who fit the high-risk profile. However, tens of thousands of people will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year who do not fit into these parameters. LUNGevity remains committed to finding a non-invasive test that can be used in conjunction with low-dose computed tomography and other tools, so that lung cancer can ultimately be found earlier in the full population affected,” said Andrea Ferris, President and Chairman of LUNGevity Foundation.
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