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Low-dose CT screening could avert 12,000 lung cancer deaths annually
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Implementation of low-dose CT screening among National Lung Screening Trial–defined screening-eligible populations has the potential to avert approximately 12,000 lung cancer deaths in the United States each year, according to study findings.
The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) established that screening with low-dose CT compared with chest X-ray significantly reduced lung cancer mortality among screening-eligible populations.
Jiemen Ma, PhD, MHS, of the surveillance research program at the American Cancer Society, and colleagues assessed the US population size, prevalence of screening eligibility and lung cancer mortality rates among screening-eligible populations to calculate an estimate of the annual number of lung cancer deaths that could be averted assuming that the screening regimens outlined in the NLST were fully implemented.
The researchers used the 2010 US Census Bureau data for age-specific and sex-specific population estimates, and they established the prevalence of screening eligibility among 7,138 participants (aged 55 to 74 years) in the 2010 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).
Lung cancer mortality rates for screening-eligible populations were calculated using the NHIS data from 2000 to 2004, as well as the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey–linked mortality files.
The researchers performed analyses separately by sex, age and smoking status, and they used Poisson regression analysis to estimate mortality rate.
Ma and colleagues reported that approximately 8.6 million Americans (95% CI, 8 million-9.2 million) — including 5.2 million men (95% CI, 4.8 million-5.7 million) and 3.4 million women (95% CI, 3 million-3.8 million) — were eligible for lung cancer screening in 2010.
If the screening regimen implemented in the NLST was made standard practice among screening-eligible US populations, 12,250 (95% CI, 10,170-15,671) lung cancer deaths (8,990 deaths in men and 3,260 deaths in women) would be prevented each year. That equates to 7.6% of the total number of lung cancer deaths in the country each year.
“We assumed 100% screening of the target population, although this is unlikely to be achieved in practice,” Ma and colleagues wrote. “If the uptake rate is 70%, which is approximately the prevalence rate of mammography screening during the past 2 years among US women aged ≥50 years in 2010, approximately 8,600 lung cancer deaths would be averted annually by [low-dose] CT screening performed within the United States.”
Disclosure: The researchers reported no relevant financial disclosures.
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