For decades, lung cancer has topped the list of cancer killers in the United States, leading to the deaths of more men and women than breast, colon, and prostate cancers combined. The good news is with CT lung screening (CTLS) we finally have a proven method to find lung cancer early when it is curable. In fact, if all individuals at high-risk for lung cancer underwent CTLS, we could cut the death rate of lung cancer nearly in half – saving tens of thousands of American lives every year. This means that CTLS has the capacity to make a bigger impact on cancer deaths/cures than any drug ever developed, and by following current guidelines CTLS could rescue more lives than curing breast cancer.

The evidence from several randomized clinical trials (NLST, NELSON, MILD, LUSI) shows lung cancer mortality reductions of 20-59% in the screening arm with improved mortality reductions with increasing screening durations. Women experienced greater benefits than men with mortality reductions of 27-61%. Both the NLST and MILD trials showed reductions in overall mortality in in addition to reductions in lung cancer mortality; 6.7% in NLST for 3 rounds of screening and 20% in MILD trial for 10 years of screening. 80% of lung cancers found in a screening program are early stage with a good chance for a cure and 70% are found at stage T1a with 90+% five year survival rates. Outside of a CTLS program, 70% of lung cancers are found at a late stage with five year survival rates of less than 15%.

CTLS is covered by private insurance and Medicare without a co-pay.