Annual lung cancer screening reduces deaths from the disease, study says

Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Increases in the number of people who undergo screening for lung cancer has led to a "substantial" decline in deaths from the disease, a study published Friday by JAMA Network Open found.

Between 2006 and 2016, the most recent year for which figures are available, the percentage of lung cancer cases diagnosed at an early stage of disease progression rose to 31% from 27%, the data showed.

Similarly, lung cancer cases diagnosed at later stages, when the disease has progressed and potentially metastasized, or spread to other parts of the body, dropped to 66% from 71% over the same period.

Lung cancer patients whose disease is identified at an early stage live an average of five years after their diagnoses, compared to seven months for those diagnosed at later stages, researchers said.

As a result of the uptick in earlier diagnoses, lung cancer deaths decreased by an average of about 4% annually during the study period, they said.

"[We have] demonstrated decreased lung cancer mortality with early detection, finding cancer in earlier stages, when tumors are smaller and more curable," study co-author Dr. Raja M. Flores said in a press release.

"This study emphasizes the impact of screening followed by surgical intervention to save lives in people at high risk for lung cancer," said Flores, chair of thoracic surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City.

Lung cancer is diagnosed in more than 200,000 people annually and is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society, despite recent improvements in survival.

Declines in smoking among people in the United States have led to a drop in lung cancer cases over the past 50 years, but improved diagnostic approaches, such as computed tomography scanning, also may have had an impact, according to Flores and his colleagues.

Once precancerous and early-cancer nodules are found in the lungs with CT scanning, they can be removed with surgery, which can often be curative, the researchers said.

For this study, they analyzed data on 312,382 people diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer between 2006 and 2016, which accounts for more than 80% of all disease cases, according to the American Cancer Society.

They chose the period of 2006 to 2016 because, in 2013, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that people at risk for lung cancer, such as smokers, be screened annually using CT.

The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine.

CT scans identify cancers in 24% of scans, while chest X-rays only find cancer 7% of the time, according to Flores and his colleagues.

However, only 5% of those who meet the task force's criteria for annual CT screening for lung cancer actually comply with the recommendations, the researchers said.

"That means that we cannot only attribute CT screening to decreased mortality," study co-author study author Dr. Emanuela Taioli said in a press release.

However, "our findings reinforce the importance of screening in the early detection, intervention and effective treatment of cancer," said Taioli, director of the Institute for Translational Epidemiology at Mount Sinai.