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May 20th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda SUNDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) — Using low-dose CT scans to
screen for lung cancer might save the lives of patients at the greatest
risk for the disease, a new analysis suggests.
However, the risks of screening for others aren’t clear, the
researchers added.
“We have insight into risks, but they are hard to weigh and estimate,”
said lead researcher Dr. Peter Bach, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center in New York City.
“It’s clear that when you screen you find cancers that otherwise
wouldn’t appear, and that leads to overtreatment,” he said. “It is clear
that CTs find lots of things that aren’t cancer. About one in five people
have something found that will require some sort of follow-up.”
There is also an excess radiation risk. In one trial, screening
prevented about three deaths per 1,000 people screened, while one in 2,500
might develop cancer from the CT scan, Bach said.
However, in the right population it could theoretically prevent
thousands of deaths a year, he explained.
Namely, that population is the heaviest smokers, those who smoke for 30
pack-years or more. A pack-year is the number of cigarettes smoked over
time. This means at least a pack a day for 30 years or two packs a day for
15 years.
“For these patients, we recommend that doctors might suggest screening
and discuss the risks and benefits,” Bach said. “But, no one should be
telling people that they must have this test or advertise that it’s a
lifesaving procedure that will prevent you from dying from lung
cancer.”
In the end, “there is no substitution for smoking cessation in terms of
health benefits,” Bach noted.
The report was published online May 20 in the Journal of the
American Medical Association.
For the study, Bach’s team reviewed 21 studies about the benefits and
risks of low-dose CT screening for lung cancer.
One of the studies, the National Lung Screening Trial, included more
than 53,000 people and found that screening reduced deaths from lung
cancer by 20 percent, the researchers said.
The results of that trial were published last June in the New
England Journal of Medicine.
However, the other, smaller trials found no benefit from screening,
Bach’s team noted.
The study authors found that, overall, 20 percent of patients had a
scan that needed follow-up, but only 1 percent had lung cancer.
The studies were done in teaching hospitals with experienced
radiologists and cancer doctors, Bach noted.
This report is the basis of the screening recommendations adopted by
the American College of Chest Physicians and the American Society of
Clinical Oncology.
The recommendations state that heavy smokers aged 55 to 74, and those
who have quit in the past 15 years, should be offered screening.
But screening should only be done at hospitals that do a lot of this
kind of screening. These are usually large or teaching hospitals, because
the value of this screening at community hospitals is not known, Bach
added.
Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer at the American Lung
Association, called the new study a “thoughtful analysis of an important
topic.”
The American Lung Association conducted a similar review and came to
similar conclusions, he said.
The data suggest that screening heavy smokers is likely to reduce death
from lung cancer by about 20 percent and all-cause mortality by about 10
percent, he said.
“Given the large cohort to which it pertains, this would be a
significant public health achievement,” Edelman stated.
However, there remain many unsettled issues, he said.
“One major issue is whether the same results would be observed in the
community as opposed to the controlled academic settings in which the
study was done,” Edelman said. “Accordingly, the American Lung Association
report emphasizes the need for screening to be done in centers which can
provide low-dose CT screening and a comprehensive multi-specialty
environment, so that finding of suspect nodules can be followed up with
appropriate [care] rather than undue risk.”
Robert Smith, director of cancer screening at the American Cancer
Society, said, “These recommendations are consistent” with screening
guidelines from similar medical groups.
However, he believes these guidelines will be refined over the years as
new data become available.
“The question remains, who else might you endorse lung cancer screening
for,” Smith said. “Suppose someone had a 35 pack/year history and they
were 35 years old, or what if they were 45 years old and had started
smoking at the age of 12.”
There may be other levels of risk where screening might be beneficial,
Smith said: “We will probably learn a lot from trials that are currently
under way.”
More information
For more on lung cancer, visit the American Lung Association.
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