More People Should Get This Test to Detect a (lung) Deadly Cancer

[question everything]

There is a test that could diminish the toll of the nation’s top cancer killer—if people would use it. Doctors are pushing harder to make that happen. Lung cancer kills upward of 127,000 people in the U.S. each year. The toll has waned in recent years thanks to declining smoking rates and new treatments, but it remains the deadliest cancer for Americans by far.

A CT scan can catch the disease early to help save lives. The five-year survival rate when lung cancer is caught early is about 60%, compared with around 7% if it is caught after disease has spread, according to the American Lung Association. Medical groups recommend annual, low-dose scans starting at 50 for people who smoke heavily or recently quit. Insurers often cover the test.

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Now some doctors and advocates are pushing harder to expand lung-cancer screening and take advantage of newer treatments that have changed the disease’s outlook. They are outfitting vans with CT equipment, imploring family doctors to recommend the scans and working to instill hope in patients who are often blamed for developing the disease. In Kentucky, where more than one in five adults smoke, the screening rate has risen to some 13%, more than double the national average. Medical centers in the state have worked together to raise awareness and swap best practices, prompting Kentucky lawmakers last year to establish a statewide screening program.

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St. Elizabeth Healthcare in northern Kentucky, where Courtney is a patient, was screening around 700 patients a month in 2022, up from seven in all of 2013, when a U.S. government-backed panel first recommended the test. More than two-thirds of lung cancers the scans identified at St. Elizabeth in 2022 were in the earliest stage.

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[hedda_foil]

1. I have one every year. Still clear. 😀😀😀

[Rhiannon12866]

2. I had mine in April.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Do it. My mother died of lung cancer more than 20 years after she quit smoking.

One of the worst things my mother ever said was she wished she had listened to me when I was nine and told her to stop smoking.

Sometimes you wish you weren't right.