Volume CT Lung Cancer Screening Cuts Cancer Deaths 24 Per Cent

Audio Journal of Oncology Podcast

Second Study Confirms Lung Cancer CT Screening Cuts Deaths

NETHERLANDS—Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam—Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine has confirmed the viability of computed tomographic (CT) screening for detecting cases of lung cancer early in high-risk individuals—namely those who smoke heavily and or have done so for decades.

A big new randomized study has confirmed that many deaths from lung cancer could be prevented by continuing and augmenting the global roll-out of computed tomographic (CT) screening for long-term heavy smokers. This follows important findings from the USA in which CT scanning was compared with chest X-ray for lung cancer detection that also came to the conclusion that many deaths from lung cancer can be prevented. Now that the professional community has confirmation from a separate study in a different continent with an alternative method of assessing CT (volumetric) the case for using CT screening for lung cancer may be considered to be convincing.

The Nederlands-Leuvens Longkanker Screenings Onderzoek (NELSON) population-based randomized controlled trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine emphasises the pivotal importance of addressing the epidemic of lung cancer which even today accounts for nearly a fifth of all cancer deaths worldwide. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1911793

In the Audio Journal of Oncology podcast first author Harry de Koning, MD PhD, Professor of Public Health at Erasmus MC University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, tells reporter Peter Goodwin how a 24 per cent reduction in lung cancer mortality was found among men (after 10 years follow up) in the screening arm as compared to the control arm. Women did even better.  Koning makes the case for global adoption of CT scanning as a key method of reducing cancer deaths, which he says can be done at an affordable cost.