Jan 02, 2104 – Smoking and Screening

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ANCHOR LEAD: IF YOU’RE A SMOKER OR FORMER SMOKER, SHOULD YOU BE SCREENED FOR LUNG CANCER? ELIZABETH TRACEY REPORTS

Overdiagnosis is the new buzzword in many cancer circles, indicating the detection of a cancer that would never have been life-threatening but now requires further evaluation and possible treatment, with a recent study applying this term to the use of low-dose CT to screen people with a long term history of smoking for lung cancer. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, offers his take on this screening.
NELSON: I think it’s a good idea. If you look at the overall reduction in from lung cancer and from other causes that’s hard to walk away from. I think what we now understand a little bit better is when you get screened, the chance to find an abnormality that will need to be evaluated further is substantial. It’s probably at least one in five or greater. The onus is on medicine and medical science to devise treatment approaches for these types of conditions that are far less associated with complications than removing a half or whole parts of lungs. :30

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.