Research to examine early screening for lung cancer

A National Cancer Institute study will enroll current and former smokers to determine the public health value of chest x-rays and spiral CT scans.

By Stephanie Stapleton, AMNews staff. Oct. 7, 2002.

Washington -- According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer continues to be the leading cancer killer in the country -- accounting for 150,000 deaths and 169,000 new diagnoses annually.

In an effort to reverse these numbers, the National Cancer Institute launched on Sept. 18 a $200 million study designed to test whether screening people at risk for lung cancer with either spiral computerized tomography or chest x-ray before they have symptoms can actually lead to a reduction in the disease's life toll.

There currently is no scientifically proven or accepted screening method for the early detection of lung cancer.

Called the National Lung Screening Trial, the effort will enroll 50,000 current or former smokers for screening at 30 sites throughout the United States.

Study participants will be randomly assigned to receive either a chest x-ray or spiral CT once a year for three years.

Researchers will continue to contact participants annually to monitor their health until 2009.

Additionally, participants can receive referrals to smoking cessation programs.

"NLST is important because there is an estimated 90 million current and former smokers in the U.S. at high risk for lung cancer, and death rates for this disease, unlike many other cancers, have not declined," said the trial's co-director John Gohagan, PhD, of NCI's division of cancer prevention.

The study will compare the number of cancers detected and cancer deaths that occur within each screening category in order to establish whether screening reduces mortality. [...]