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New Lung Cancer Screening Guidelines Expand Eligibility

New lung cancer screening guidelines expand eligibility - CBS News

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The American Cancer Society has updated its lung cancer screening guidelines to include more adults. Dr. Timothy Tiutan, an oncology hospitalist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, joins CBS News to discuss what prompted the update.

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American Cancer Society Updates Guidelines On Lung Cancer Screenings

(CNN) - Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S., and the American Cancer Society recently released new guidelines for lung cancer screenings.

The organization is now recommending testing for nearly 5 million more adults who smoke or used to smoke.

Lung cancer kills more people in the U.S. Than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. But early detection can save lives.

"Only about 5% of those that are eligible for lung cancer screening are actually being screened," said Dr. William Dahut, a chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society.

Previously, it was recommended that anyone between the ages of 50 to 80 with at least a 20-pack-per-year smoking history, who currently smokes cigarettes or quit within the past 15 years, to be screened annually for lung cancer.

But the American Cancer Society is now advising doctors to remove that "time since quit" criteria.

"What we found was that while there was initially sort of a decrease or leveling of risk of lung cancer, as a patient ages, the risk of lung cancer increases significantly," Dahut said.

Dahut said this update will make it easier to know who should be screened for lung cancer.

"Because people don't have to calculate when people stopped smoking, and by changing our guidelines we're actually going to increase the number of eligible patients by about 37%, which means about 5 million more Americans will be eligible for lung cancer screening," Dahut said.

The screening is a quick low-dose CT scan of the chest since coverage is largely driven by screening recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Taskforce. That agency has not currently adopted this update.

Insurance may or may not cover lung cancer screenings based on this updated American Cancer Society guideline, but Dahut said he hopes that will change.

"We're hopeful that once our guidelines are in place, people will look at the value of that," he said.

The American Cancer Society said if lung cancer is found early, the chances of being cured are much higher, and there are new drugs and treatments that can help improve the chance of survival as well.

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Millions More Adults Should Be Screened For Lung Cancer Under New American Cancer Society Guidelines

(The Hill) — Nearly 5 million additional Americans should be screened for lung cancer, according to an updated guideline released Wednesday by the American Cancer Society (ACS).

The update marks the first change to screening recommendations in a decade. The group now recommends annual screening with low-dose computed tomography for men and women between the ages of 50 and 80 who currently smoke or formerly smoked, with a 20-pack-year history.

A pack-year is equal to smoking one pack, or about 20 cigarettes, per day for a year. For example, someone who smoked two packs a day for 10 years has a 20-pack-year history, as well as someone who smoked one pack a day for 20 years.

A computed tomography scan uses X-rays to make detailed images of a person's chest, including the lungs. It can help find abnormal areas in the lungs that may be cancer before they start causing any symptoms.

The previous recommendation, from 2013, said screening should be for adults ages 55 to 74 with at least a 30-pack-year smoking history, who either currently smoke or quit smoking less than 15 years ago.

Now, though, "for individuals who formerly smoked, the number of years since quitting is not an eligibility criterion to begin or to stop screening," the organization wrote.

While quitting smoking lowers the risk of lung cancer over time compared with continued smoking, the risk is still higher than among people who have never smoked, the ACS wrote.

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Lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer in both men and women, and it accounts for 20 percent of all cancer deaths.

The death rate has been declining sharply in recent years largely due to tobacco control efforts, but it is still extremely deadly.

The ACS estimated nearly 240,000 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed, and about 127,000 people will die from the disease in 2023. Cigarette smoking accounts for approximately 80 percent of all cases.

Many deaths from lung cancer could be prevented if people who qualify for lung cancer screening got tested every year, the ACS said.

The ACS recommendation now aligns more closely with that of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an independent panel of medical experts, which recommends annual low-dose computed tomography screening for lung cancer in adults aged 50 to 80 years who have a 20-pack-year smoking history.

Because the task force endorsed the scans, most insurers must cover it without imposing cost-sharing on patients. However, the USPSTF recommendation only extends to people who currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years.

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