NEW YORK, March 18 (UPI) -- Clinicians can now provide a better assessment of a patient's lung cancer risk than ever before, researchers reported Tuesday.
By setting out to create an effective model to predict risk of lung cancer in heavy smokers, researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center found age, gender, occupational exposure to asbestos and three other factors contribute to a person's risk for developing the deadly disease.
"This will help people decide if they want to be screened for lung cancer," said Dr. Peter Bach, pulmonary physician and epidemiologist with the center. The model for risk assessment "should add discussion between clinician and patient about whether the patient should get screened."
Screening for lung cancer is not dangerous in itself. However, "the downside of screening is that you're bound to find something," Bach noted. Some kind of procedure, ranging from a biopsy to surgery, which might not be necessary, probably will be carried out, he said.
In his study, Bach found weighing age, gender, and occupational exposure to asbestos -- as well as examining how many years someone smoked, how much and how long a person has gone without a cigarette -- contributed to the likelihood a person would develop lung cancer.
Using these variables, researchers teased out a spectrum of risk among more than 18,000 subjects. The risk ranged from less than 1 percent, or one out of 100, to a high of 16 percent, or about one out of seven. On the "low" end was a 51-year-old woman who had smoked a pack a day for almost 30 years but stopped for nine years. At the "high" end was a 68-year-old man who smoked twice that amount continually for 50 years.
As Bach explained, those with a 1 percent chance of developing lung cancer still were 10 times more likely to develop cancer over people who did not smoke at all.
"Everybody who smokes should think about quitting," Bach emphasized.
"(The model) is a good idea," said Dr. Norman Edelman, consultant for scientific affairs with the American Lung Association in New York. "It'll have to be tested and validated, but if it works, it's very important."
Current models for lung cancer risk are crude, Edelman explained. "(This one) improves prediction of risk," which will minimize screening and unnecessary surgical procedures that result from screening.
He added, "I would hope (the model) gets incorporated into screening practice as soon as possible."
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(Reported by Christine Suh, UPI Science News, in Washington)
