LCA’s Position on Screening
As an organization whose mission is to advocate for those with and at risk for lung cancer, we would like to share our position on the issue of lung cancer screening.
Lung cancer is the most deadly of all the cancers and it is the only major cancer that does not have a widely accepted screening test. Mammograms, PSA tests and colonoscopies have helped raise the 5 year survival rates for breast cancer to 88%, for prostate cancer to 99% and colon cancer to 65%. Lung cancer is a stealthy, slow growing cancer that rarely exhibits obvious symptoms until late stage. Only 16% of lung cancer is being diagnosed at an early, localized, and most treatable stage. Not surprisingly, the five year survival rate for lung cancer is only 15%. Most die within a year.
Research, ongoing for years and strongly supported by LCA, to screen for lung cancer with a simple blood, sputum or genetic test, has not yet yielded results. But the rapidly developing field of computed tomography (CT) imaging has finally offered an option to those at high risk. Everyone agrees that CT scans can detect lung cancer at its earliest stage and that this technology continues to advance at an incredible pace.
Proponents say the 13 year international study carried out by International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) and published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year has demonstrated that CT screening can boost lung cancer’s 5 year survival rates as high as other screened cancers. Data continues to build both nationally and internationally in support of the I-ELCAP findings and an increasing number of people at high risk for lung cancer are making the decision to be screened.
Opponents claim that many lung cancers found by CT scans would not have been fatal, that biopsies and surgeries are risky, that the scanning process causes undue anxiety and that screening a large population would cost too much.
Similar arguments were used to forestall other now widely used screening tests. Despite decades of debate, there is still enormous controversy over the efficacy of mammograms for women under 50 and the high number of false positives and overdiagnoses from PSA testing.
Given the lethality of lung cancer, and given our commitment to those with AND those at risk for lung cancer, Lung Cancer Alliance stands firmly behind the patient’s right to choose. LCA recommends that those at high risk for lung cancer should discuss the risks and benefits of CT screening with their doctors. LCA also strongly advises that screening should only be done at facilities that have a proven track record of lung cancer screening experience, that have a multi-disciplinary team of doctors to review the scans and that follow the I-ELCAP protocol or a screening regimen as rigorous and thorough as the I-ELCAP protocol. Please visit our websites for more information.
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