“CT Scans for Smokers Could Lower Lung Cancer Deaths by 20 Percent” - Dr. Claudia Henschke
If all current or former heavy smokers over 55 were screened, there could be as much as a 20 percent reduction in the number of people dying from lung cancer, according to the results of the National Lung Screening Trial, published in full today in the New England Journal of Medicine. These study results, first hinted at in a preliminary report released last November, offer the first solid evidence that screening high-risk patients using CT scans could reduce lung cancer deaths – a finding that has at least 20 of the nation's major medical centers setting up CT lung screening programs of their own. “The size of a grain of rice is what you are looking for,” said Dr. Claudia Henschke from Mount Sinai. “And you would never see that on a chest x-ray.” Learn More